Biophysical approaches for exploring lipopeptide-lipid interactions

In recent years, lipopeptides (LPs) have attracted a lot of attention in the pharmaceutical industry due to their broad-spectrum of antimicrobial activity against a variety of pathogens and their unique mode of action. This class of compounds has enormous potential for application as an alternative to conventional antibiotics and for pest control. Understanding how LPs work from a structural and biophysical standpoint through investigating their interaction with cell membranes is crucial for the rational design of these biomolecules. Various analytical techniques have been developed for studying intramolecular interactions with high resolution. However, these tools have been barely exploited in lipopeptide-lipid interactions studies. These biophysical approaches would give precise insight on these interactions. Here, we reviewed these state-of-the-art analytical techniques. Knowledge at this level is indispensable for understanding LPs activity and particularly their potential specificity, which is relevant information for safe application. Additionally, the principle of each analytical technique is presented and the information acquired is discussed. The key challenges, such as the selection of the membrane model are also been briefly reviewed.