Interaction of alamethicin pores in DMPC bilayers

Abstract

We have investigated the x-ray scattering signal of highly aligned multilayers of the zwitterionic lipid 1,2-dimyristoylsnglycero-3-phosphatidylcholine containing pores formed by the antimicrobial peptide alamethicin as a function of the peptide/lipid ratio. We are able to obtain information on the structure factor of the pore fluid, which then yields the interaction potential between pores in the plane of the bilayers. Aside from a hard core with a radius corresponding to the geometric radius of the pore, we find a repulsive lipid-mediated interaction with a range of similar to 30 angstrom and a contact value of 2.4 k(B)T. This result is in qualitative agreement with recent theoretical models.