Persistent voids: a new structural metric for membrane fusion

claudia submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (bioinformatics.oxfordjournals.org)

Membrane fusion constitutes a key stage in cellular processes such as synaptic neurotransmission and infection by enveloped viruses. Current experimental assays for fusion have thus far been unable to resolve early fusion events in structural detail. We have previously used molecular dynamics simulations to develop mechanistic models of fusion by small lipid vesicles. Here, we introduce a novel structural measurement of vesicle topology and fusion geometry: persistent voids.

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