Structural insights into cardiolipin replacement by phosphatidylglycerol in a cardiolipin-lacking yeast respiratory supercomplex.

Hryc, Corey F; Mallampalli, Venkata K P S; Bovshik, Evgeniy I; Azinas, Stavros; Fan, Guizhen; Serysheva, Irina I; Sparagna, Genevieve C; Baker, Matthew L et al. · Nat Commun · 2023

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Cardiolipin is a hallmark phospholipid of mitochondrial membranes. Despite established significance of cardiolipin in supporting respiratory supercomplex organization, a mechanistic understanding of this lipid-protein interaction is still lacking. To address the essential role of cardiolipin in supercomplex organization, we report cryo-EM structures of a wild type supercomplex (IV<sub>1</sub>III<sub>2</sub>IV<sub>1</sub>) and a supercomplex (III<sub>2</sub>IV<sub>1</sub>) isolated from a cardiolipin-lacking Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutant at 3.2-Å and 3.3-Å resolution, respectively, and demonstrate that phosphatidylglycerol in III<sub>2</sub>IV<sub>1</sub> occupies similar positions as cardiolipin in IV<sub>1</sub>III<sub>2</sub>IV<sub>1</sub>. Lipid-protein interactions within these complexes differ, which conceivably underlies the reduced level of IV<sub>1</sub>III<sub>2</sub>IV<sub>1</sub> and high levels of III<sub>2</sub>IV<sub>1</sub> and free III<sub>2</sub> and IV in mutant mitochondria. Here we show that anionic phospholipids interact with positive amino acids and appear to nucleate a phospholipid domain at the interface between the individual complexes, which dampen charge repulsion and further stabilize interaction, respectively, between individual complexes.

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