Transmembrane protein (perfringolysin o) association with ordered membrane domains (rafts) depends upon the raft-associating properties of protein-bound sterol.

Because transmembrane (TM) protein localization, or nonlocalization, in ordered membrane domains (rafts) is a key to understanding membrane domain function, it is important to define the origin of protein-raft interaction. One hypothesis is that a tight noncovalent attachment of TM proteins to lipids that have a strong affinity for ordered domains can be sufficient to induce raft-protein interaction. The sterol-binding protein perfringolysin O (PFO) was used to test this hypothesis. PFO binds both to sterols that tend to localize in ordered domains (e.g., cholesterol), and to those that do not (e.g., coprostanol), but it does not bind to epicholesterol, a raft-promoting 3α-OH sterol. Using a fluorescence resonance energy transfer assay in model membrane vesicles containing coexisting ordered and disordered lipid domains, both TM and non-TM forms of PFO were found to concentrate in ordered domains in vesicles containing high and low-Tm lipids plus cholesterol or 1:1 (mol/mol) cholesterol/epicholesterol, whereas they concentrate in disordered domains in vesicles containing high-Tm and low-Tm lipids plus 1:1 (mol/mol) coprostanol/epicholesterol. Combined with previous studies this behavior indicates that TM protein association with ordered domains is dependent upon both the association of the protein-bound sterol with ordered domains and hydrophobic match between TM segments and rafts.