Reduced level of docosahexaenoic acid shifts GPCR neuroreceptors to less ordered membrane regions
Fig 4
2D radial distribution functions of different lipid chains around the center of mass of A2AR and cholesterol density maps.
A) The radial distribution functions are shown as a function of distance from the A2AR COM for the Lo phase membrane (DSPC/CHOL) with 4 mol% SDPE. Data are extracted from the last 5 μs of the 10 μs simulation using the gmx rdf tool. Error bars show standard error. Data for other SDPE concentrations are shown in Fig. E in the S1 File. B & C) Cholesterol density around A2AR in systems B) without SDPE and C) with 16 mol% SDPE is shown as a blue isosurface. The residues involved in binding cholesterol, suggested by earlier studies, are shown in orange [27] and yellow [28]. The vicinity of these residues to the observed cholesterol density (blue) suggests that cholesterol reaches the protein surface and often finds the proper binding sites in our simulations. Note that the isosurfaces are not in scale.