Scholarlink

<p>Cell-cell fusion is fundamental to processes such as muscle formation and viral infection. An essential step in fusion is close membrane apposition, but cell membranes are crowded with proteins, glycoproteins, and glycolipids, which must be cleared before a fusion pore can be nucleated. Here, we find that cell surface crowding reduces fusogenicity independent of how fusion is driven. We estimate that crowding presents an energetic barrier to membrane apposition on the scale of ~<InlineEquation ID="IEq1"> <InlineMediaObject> <ImageObject Color="BlackWhite" FileRef="41467_2025_62330_Article_IEq1.gif" Format="GIF" Height="20" Rendition="HTML" Resolution="72" Type="Linedraw" Width="60" /> </InlineMediaObject> <EquationSource Format="TEX">\({100k}_{{\mbox{B}}}T\)</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"><math> <msub> <mrow> <mn>100</mn> <mi>k</mi> </mrow> <mrow> <mstyle> <mtext>B</mtext> </mstyle> </mrow> </msub> <mi>T</mi> </math></EquationSource> </InlineEquation>, greater than that of bare membrane fusion alone. We show that increasing cell surface crowding reduces fusion efficiency of PEG-mediated and fusogen-mediated cell-cell fusion, as well as synthetic membranes under force. Interestingly, we find that differentiating myoblasts naturally decrease their surface crowding prior to fusion. In this work, we show that cell surface crowding presents an underappreciated biophysical barrier that may be tuned developmentally and could be targeted externally to control tissue-specific cell-cell fusion.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Cell surface crowding is a tunable energetic barrier to cell-cell fusion

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2025年8月4日

查看全文
  • Daniel S. W. Lee,
  • Liya F. Oster,
  • Sungmin Son,
  • Daniel A. Fletcher

摘要

Cell-cell fusion is fundamental to processes such as muscle formation and viral infection. An essential step in fusion is close membrane apposition, but cell membranes are crowded with proteins, glycoproteins, and glycolipids, which must be cleared before a fusion pore can be nucleated. Here, we find that cell surface crowding reduces fusogenicity independent of how fusion is driven. We estimate that crowding presents an energetic barrier to membrane apposition on the scale of ~ \({100k}_{{\mbox{B}}}T\) 100 k B T , greater than that of bare membrane fusion alone. We show that increasing cell surface crowding reduces fusion efficiency of PEG-mediated and fusogen-mediated cell-cell fusion, as well as synthetic membranes under force. Interestingly, we find that differentiating myoblasts naturally decrease their surface crowding prior to fusion. In this work, we show that cell surface crowding presents an underappreciated biophysical barrier that may be tuned developmentally and could be targeted externally to control tissue-specific cell-cell fusion.