Professor Jeanne Stachowiak is the coauthor of a review paper published in the September 2013 issue of Nature Cell Biology.
The causes and energy required to curve membranes are important to our understanding of cell functionality and how we treat disease. Membrane curvature allows cells to internalize nutrients and signaling molecules, as well as harmful pathogens and therapeutic drugs. Proteins assemble on lipid membrane surfaces to generate the force required to curve membranes.
Professor Jeanne Stachowiak is the coauthor of a review paper published in the September 2013 issue of Nature Cell Biology. The paper, titled A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Physical Mechanisms of Membrane Curvature, examines the system of molecules that drive cellular membranes to curve and theories about the physical processes that are responsible for assembly of curved membrane structures during diverse cellular events such as uptake of drugs and pathogens, wound healing, and cell division.
Cellular membranes' ability to curve is critical to health. Generally, cellular membranes curve to form membrane compartments that take up proteins and nutrients from their surrounding environment. If there are disruptions and mutations to this process, disease occurs.
"A number of diseases are brought about due to the machinery of cellular uptake not working correctly," says Stachowiak. "Cystic Fibrosis, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's Disease, are all illnesses that we know are affected by dysfunctions in membrane curvature and transport within cells."
The paper is the first to compile the energetic contributions of multiple physical processes in order to present a comprehensive picture of the energetic cost of forming membrane vesicles. Further, the paper highlights the role of protein crowding on membrane surfaces as an emerging driver of membrane curvature. In sum, the work presents the balance of mechanisms that favor and oppose cellular membrane curvature.
Stachowiak worked on the paper over the past year with two other researchers: Elizabeth Miller, a biologist from Columbia University, and Frances Brodsky, a biochemist from the University of California San Francisco. Nature Cell Biology selected the three to work together because each had recently addressed new topics in membrane curvature independently.
Stachowiak's role was to look at the field from a biophysics and engineering perspective. She performed physical modeling to estimate how diverse molecular systems make energetic contributions to the curvature of cellular membranes, enabling healthy cellular activities.
Her work on the paper fits with Stachowiak's overall research goals, which are to understand and constructively manipulate the physical mechanisms responsible for the structure and organization of cellular membranes. This research enables Stachowiak's lab to design novel biomaterials that can overcome physical barriers, leading to new ways of delivering drugs and proteins precisely to disease cells and tissues.
