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Membrane curvature bends the laws of physics and chemistry

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A 'chemical biology of cellular membranes' must capture the way that mesoscale perturbations tune the biochemical properties of constituent lipid and protein molecules and vice versa. Whereas the classical paradigm focuses on chemical composition, dynamic modulation of the physical shape or curvature of a membrane is emerging as a complementary and synergistic modus operandi for regulating cellular membrane biology.

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Figure 1: Lipid membranes.
Figure 2: Membrane composition and curvature contribute synergistically to the trafficking and sorting of membrane-associated proteins.
Figure 3: Separate motifs on the same protein could be envisaged to regulate its spatial organization and function independently in a curvature-dependent manner.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Chemistry, Lars Iversen, Jannik Bruun Larsen and Dimitrios Stamou are in the Bionanotechnology and Nanomedicine Laboratory, the Nano-Science Center and the Lundbeck Foundation Center for Biomembranes in Nanomedicine, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.,

    Lars Iversen, Jannik Bruun Larsen & Dimitrios Stamou

  2. Signe Mathiasen previously had the same affiliations and is now in the Molecular Therapeutics Division, Department of Psychiatry and Pharmacology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.,

    Signe Mathiasen

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  1. Lars Iversen
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  2. Signe Mathiasen
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  4. Dimitrios Stamou
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Correspondence to Dimitrios Stamou.

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Iversen, L., Mathiasen, S., Larsen, J. et al. Membrane curvature bends the laws of physics and chemistry. Nat Chem Biol 11, 822–825 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.1941

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