Reduced level of docosahexaenoic acid shifts GPCR neuroreceptors to less ordered membrane regions
Fig 1
A snapshot of a simulated membrane, the used lipid moieties, and the thermodynamic cycle for estimation of the free energy of transfer of a membrane protein between the Ld and Lo phases.
A) Lo membrane with 8 mol% SDPE after 10 μs of equilibration. In panel A), A2AR is shown in green, DSPC in blue, CHOL in red, and SDPE in yellow. CG structures of B) DSPC, C) DOPC, D) SDPE, and E) CHOL. In panels B)–E), phosphate is shown in brown, choline/ethanolamine in blue, and the CHOL ring in green. The saturated chain segments and glycerol are shown in cyan, while the unsaturated chains are shown in purple. F) The thermodynamic cycle. The horizontal arrows represent the transformations used in this work, whereas the vertical arrows represent the alternative transformations employed commonly for smaller molecules (see Section A.1 in S1 File for details). Lipids having a low main transition temperature Tm (here DOPC, present in the Ld phase) and lipids having a high Tm (here DSPC, present in the Lo phase) are shown in cyan and green, respectively. Cholesterol is shown in yellow and the protein in orange.