Abstract

I will review recent progress on our understanding of the membrane fusion mechanism. New intermediates revealed by coarse-grained molecular simulations will be explained with the self-consistent field theoretic approach. The most important new feature predicted theoretically is the possibility of a non-axially symmetric fusion intermediate that can lead to transient leakage. This observation is in a clear contradiction with the widely accepted dogma of non-leaky fusion. Experimental
confirmation and consequences of this as well as other predictions will be discussed.