Self-assembly of polyhedral bilayer vesicles from Piezo ion channels

TL;DR

This paper presents a methodology for the self-assembly of polyhedral bilayer vesicles incorporating Piezo ion channels, revealing how curvature controls vesicle symmetry and size, validated with bacterial mechanosensitive channels.

Contribution

It introduces a new theoretical framework for Piezo-based vesicle self-assembly, linking membrane curvature to vesicle symmetry and size, supported by experimental validation.

Findings

High abundance of octahedral, icosahedral, and snub cube symmetries in Piezo vesicles

Critical role of Piezo dome curvature in vesicle self-assembly

Validation with bacterial mechanosensitive channels of small conductance

Abstract

Piezo ion channels underlie many forms of mechanosensation in vertebrates, and have been found to bend the membrane into strongly curved dome shapes. We develop here a methodology describing the self-assembly of lipids and Piezo into polyhedral bilayer vesicles. We validate this methodology for bilayer vesicles formed from bacterial mechanosensitive channels of small conductance, for which experiments found a polyhedral arrangement of proteins with snub cube symmetry and a well-defined characteristic vesicle size. On this basis, we calculate the self-assembly diagram for polyhedral bilayer vesicles formed from Piezo. We find that the radius of curvature of the Piezo dome provides a critical control parameter for the self-assembly of Piezo vesicles, with high abundances of Piezo vesicles with octahedral, icosahedral, and snub cube symmetry with increasing Piezo dome radius of curvature.