ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2014
Expansion of the fusion stalk and its implication for biological membrane fusion.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 57 papers.
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Who cites it
57 citing papers in PubMed, 114 citations in OpenAlex.
- Let's Stalk about Membranes: Committor-Based Enhanced Sampling of Stalk Formation.The journal of physical chemistry letters · 2026Article
- Hemifusomes and proteolipid nanodroplets: a critical synthesis of an emerging model for endosomal membrane remodeling.Cell communication and signaling : CCS · 2026Review
- Transmembrane domains of fusion proteins promote stalk formation by inducing membrane disorder.Biophysical journal · 2026Article
- The Interplay of Lipids and Peptides in Membrane Merger.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- The Martini 3 Lipidome: Expanded and Refined Parameters Improve Lipid Phase Behavior.ACS central science · 2025Article
- Hemifusomes and interacting proteolipid nanodroplets mediate multi-vesicular body formation.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Hemifusomes and Interacting Proteolipid Nanodroplets Mediate Multi-Vesicular Body Formation.Research square · 2024Article
- Visualizing intermediate stages of viral membrane fusion by cryo-electron tomography.Trends in biochemical sciences · 2024Review
- Transient pores in hemifusion diaphragms.Biophysical journal · 2024Article
- The diffuse interface description of fluid lipid membranes captures key features of the hemifusion pathway and lateral stress profile.PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- Nanoparticle induced fusion of lipid membranes.Nanoscale · 2024Article
- Review
- Mechanisms of SNARE proteins in membrane fusion.Nature reviews. Molecular cell biology · 2024Review
- Nanoparticle-induced biomembrane fusion: unraveling the effect of core size on stalk formation.Nanoscale advances · 2023Article
- Simulated dynamic cholesterol redistribution favors membrane fusion pore constriction.Biophysical journal · 2023Article
- High curvature promotes fusion of lipid membranes: Predictions from continuum elastic theory.Biophysical journal · 2023Article
- Measuring pico-Newton Forces with Lipid Anchors as Force Sensors in Molecular Dynamics Simulations.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2023Article
- Requirement of Cholesterol for Calcium-Dependent Vesicle Fusion by Strengthening Synaptotagmin-1-Induced Membrane Bending.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2023Article
- Cyclic lipopeptides as membrane fusion inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2: New tricks for old dogs.Antiviral research · 2023Article
- A hemifused complex is the hub in a network of pathways to membrane fusion.Biophysical journal · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Over the past 20 years, it has been widely accepted that membrane fusion proceeds via a hemifusion step before opening of the productive fusion pore. An initial hourglass-shaped lipid structure, the fusion stalk, is formed between the adjacent membrane leaflets (cis leaflets). It remains controversial if and how fusion proteins drive the subsequent transition (expansion) of the stalk into a fusion pore. Here, we propose a comprehensive and consistent thermodynamic understanding in terms of the underlying free-energy landscape of stalk expansion. We illustrate how the underlying free energy landscape of stalk expansion and the concomitant pathway is altered by subtle differences in membrane environment, such as leaflet composition, asymmetry, and flexibility. Nonleaky stalk expansion (stalk widening) requires the formation of a critical trans-leaflet contact. The fusion machinery can mechanically enforce trans-leaflet contact formation either by directly enforcing the trans-leaflets in close proximity, or by (electrostatically) condensing the area of the cis leaflets. The rate of these fast fusion reactions may not be primarily limited by the energetics but by the forces that the fusion proteins are able to exert.
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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.