SANS Study of Membrane Disruptions by Rationally Designed Cationic Lipopeptides

A group of designed lipopeptides with only 4 amino acids have displayed large differences in antimicrobial efficacy against E. coli and biocompatibility, as well as in secondary structures upon membrane binding. SANS is about the only method that could help reveal how these lipopeptides attack inner and outer bacterial membranes from the established SUV membrane models for Gram-negative bacteria. This work is part of PhD research by Tianhao Ge and constitutes an important aspect of our design and development of effective antimicrobial peptides. 3 days of beam time is requested on SANS2D. SANS2D is preferred because of the need for high resolution and coverage of the entire Q range due to the different size range, requiring measurement over 3 angles to cover the q-range from 0.001 to 0.4 Å-1.