Figure 4

(A) Coverage of components within the asolectin and d-p7 membrane. The green curve represents the asolectin bilayer with dashed curves depicting the tails and head groups. Coverage of d-p7 obtained from the conical protein model is shown by the solid red line and the cylindrical protein model by the dashed red line. The dotted line is the His tag coverage and the blue line is the water distribution. Water within the bilayer may be attributed to either the protein pore volume or water filled bilayer defects. The quartz interface (at z ≈ −30) has been replaced with water for simplicity. (B–D) Assuming rotational symmetry, cross sections of the protein conformation were calculated from the conical model. Since NR is not sensitive to in-plane structure, the lateral dimension of the protein is arbitrary. Dashed lines indicate the central pore and vary depending on the fraction of water attributed to the pore volume or bilayer defects. Panel B corresponds to the protein structure in the absence of bilayer defects, panel C to 10% of the water attributed to the pore, and panel D to zero pore volume. In panel C, the conical shape obtained here is shown overlaid with the electron microscopy structure of p7 from Luik et al.²⁶.