Cholesterol stabilizes fluid phosphoinositide domains

• Cholesterol participates in a hydrogen bond network formed among phosphoinositide headgroups.
• The domain stabilizing effect of cholesterol is found for all naturally occurring phosphoinositide derivatives.
• Cholesterol/phosphoinositide domains are in a fluid phase state.
• The cholesterol hydroxyl group is a major factor for the observed interaction with phosphoinositides.
• The phosphoinositide phosphomonoester groups modulate but are not required for the interaction with cholesterol.

Local accumulation of phosphoinositides (PIPs) is an important factor for a broad range of cellular events including membrane trafficking and cell signaling. The negatively charged phosphoinositide headgroups can interact with cations or cationic proteins and this electrostatic interaction has been identified as the main phosphoinositide clustering mechanism. However, an increasing number of reports show that phosphoinositide-mediated signaling events are at least in some cases cholesterol dependent, suggesting other possible contributors to the segregation of phosphoinositides. Using fluorescence microscopy on giant unilamellar vesicles and monolayers at the air/water interface, we present data showing that cholesterol stabilizes fluid phosphoinositide-enriched phases. The interaction with cholesterol is observed for all investigated phosphoinositides (PI(4)P, PI(3,4)P2, PI(3,5)P2, PI(4,5)P2 and PI(3,4,5)P3) as well as phosphatidylinositol. We find that cholesterol is present in the phosphoinositide-enriched phase and that the resulting phase is fluid. Cholesterol derivatives modified at the hydroxyl group (cholestenone, cholesteryl ethyl ether) do not promote formation of phosphoinositide domains, suggesting an instrumental role of the cholesterol hydroxyl group in the observed cholesterol/phosphoinositide interaction. This leads to the hypothesis that cholesterol participates in an intermolecular hydrogen bond network formed among the phosphoinositide lipids. We had previously reported that the intra- and intermolecular hydrogen bond network between the phosphoinositide lipids leads to a reduction of the charge density at the phosphoinositide phosphomonoester groups (Kooijman et al., 2009). We believe that cholesterol acts as a spacer between the phosphoinositide lipids, thereby reducing the electrostatic repulsion, while participating in the hydrogen bond network, leading to its further stabilization. To illustrate the effect of phosphoinositide segregation on protein binding, we show that binding of the tumor suppressor protein PTEN to PI(5)P and PI(4,5)P2 is enhanced in the presence of cholesterol. These results provide new insights into how phosphoinositides mediate important cellular events.