Transmembrane coupling of protein condensates via membrane-mediated interactions: A simulation study

Abstract

Recent experiments show that protein condensates sitting on opposite surfaces of a flat lipid membrane move together and prefer to overlap, even though they cannot touch each other. This points to an indirect, membrane-mediated interaction. Two mechanisms could be responsible: a curvature-induced interaction, which is energetic in origin, and a fluctuation-induced interaction, which is entropic. Here we study both with coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations, using Cooke’s implicit-solvent lipid model together with a generic bead-spring polymer model for the condensate. We compute the potential of mean force between two condensates across the membrane. For condensates of the same size, full overlap is unfavorable, and the pair instead settles into a partially overlapping state that bends the membrane into an S-like shape. When the two condensates differ strongly in size, full overlap becomes favorable. We explain this with a simple geometric picture. The condensate wets the membrane as a thin film and imposes curvature only along its rim, while membrane tension flattens the membrane under its interior. The resulting ring of curvature can trap a smaller condensate on the opposite side. We also compare the bending undulations and the effective bending modulus of a bare membrane, a membrane with one condensate, and a membrane with condensates on both sides. A wetting condensate suppresses the undulation modes and stiffens the membrane, but whether this makes overlap entropically favorable remains inconclusive. Our results indicate that the coupling is driven mainly by curvature, and that it depends on the wetting mechanism and on the membrane tension.