Figure 1.

Schematic depiction of the membrane fusion process. (A) Two species of membrane-coated beads are present in our experiments—one fraction of beads carries E3/E4 fusogenic peptides incorporated into the membrane (orange helices) and the other fraction displays the complementary K3/K4 fusogenic peptides (green helices). (B) Close contact of two complementary beads facilitated by formation of coiled-coil structures leads to membrane fusion, yielding a single continuous membrane covering both spheres. (C) Confocal laser scanning micrograph of membrane-coated beads with a continuous membrane spanning both spheres. Gray scale with inverted colors. Scale bar, 5 μm. To see this figure in color, go online.