Membrane fusion assayed by pore-spanning lipid bilayers Summary

The aim of this proposal is to establish a fusion assay, which allows to reconstitute the full protein machineries of membrane fusion and thereby enables one to monitor simultaneously lipid mixing (hemifusion and full fusion) and content release (fusion pore formation and -expansion) on the level of single fusion events. With this assay in hand, we will address the influence of vesicle size, the lateral distribution of membrane components such as PI(4,5)P₂, SNAREs and synaptotagmin 1 on the fusion process. Furthermore, we plan to investigate fusion mediated by late endosomal SNAREs.