ArticleThe Journal of biological chemistry2013
The cation-π box is a specific phosphatidylcholine membrane targeting motif.
Article in The Journal of biological chemistry, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Mechanistic basis of teichoic acid transport by a gatekeeper flippase.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The Martini 3 Lipidome: Expanded and Refined Parameters Improve Lipid Phase Behavior.ACS central science · 2025Article
- Cation-π Interactions in Biomolecular Contexts by Neutron Scattering and Molecular Dynamics: A Case Study of the Tetramethylammonium Cation.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2025Article
- Duplicate entries in the Protein Data Bank: how to detect and handle them.Acta crystallographica. Section D, Structural biology · 2025Article
- The Cation-π Interaction in Chemistry and Biology.Chemical reviews · 2025Review
- Model Mechanism for Lipid Uptake by the Human STARD2/PC-TP Phosphatidylcholine Transfer Protein.The journal of physical chemistry letters · 2024Article
- Article
- Standard Binding Free Energy and Membrane Desorption Mechanism for a Phospholipase C.Journal of chemical information and modeling · 2022Article
- Phosphatidylcholine Cation-Tyrosine π Complexes: Motifs for Membrane Binding by a Bacterial Phospholipase C.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Specificity of Loxosceles α clade phospholipase D enzymes for choline-containing lipids: Role of a conserved aromatic cage.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Cation-π Interactions and their Functional Roles in Membrane Proteins.Journal of molecular biology · 2021Review
- Capturing Choline-Aromatics Cation-π Interactions in the MARTINI Force Field.Journal of chemical theory and computation · 2020Article
- Review
- Defining the subcellular distribution and metabolic channeling of phosphatidylinositol.The Journal of cell biology · 2020Article
- Structural basis of phosphatidylcholine recognition by the C2-domain of cytosolic phospholipase AeLife · 2019Article
- Cation-π Interactions between Methylated Ammonium Groups and Tryptophan in the CHARMM36 Additive Force Field.Journal of chemical theory and computation · 2019Article
- Crystal structure of the human alkaline sphingomyelinase provides insights into substrate recognition.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2017Article
- Aspects of Weak Interactions between Folate and Glycine Betaine.Biochemistry · 2016Article
- Crystal Structure of the Acid Sphingomyelinase-like Phosphodiesterase SMPDL3B Provides Insights into Determinants of Substrate Specificity.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Peripheral membrane proteins can be targeted to specific organelles or the plasma membrane by differential recognition of phospholipid headgroups. Although molecular determinants of specificity for several headgroups, including phosphatidylserine and phosphoinositides are well defined, specific recognition of the headgroup of the zwitterionic phosphatidylcholine (PC) is less well understood. In cytosolic proteins the cation-π box provides a suitable receptor for choline recognition and binding through the trimethylammonium moiety. In PC, this moiety might provide a sufficient handle to bind to peripheral proteins via a cation-π cage, where the π systems of two or more aromatic residues are within 4-5 Å of the quaternary amine. We prove this hypothesis by engineering the cation-π box into secreted phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C from Staphylococcus aureus, which lacks specific PC recognition. The N254Y/H258Y variant selectively binds PC-enriched vesicles, and x-ray crystallography reveals N254Y/H258Y binds choline and dibutyroylphosphatidylcholine within the cation-π motif. Such simple PC recognition motifs could be engineered into a wide variety of secondary structures providing a generally applicable method for specific recognition of PC.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.