Model membranes to shed light on the biochemical and physical properties of ezrin/radixin/moesin

Ezrin, radixin and moesin (ERM) proteins are now more and more recognized to play a key role in a large number of important physiological processes such as morphogenesis, cancer metastasis and virus infection. Several recent reviews extensively discuss their biological functions [1 -4 ]. In this review, we will first remind the main features of this family of proteins, which are now known as linkers and regulators of the plasma membrane/cytoskeleton linkage. We will then briefly review their implication in pathological processes such as cancer and viral infection. In a second part, we will focus on biochemical and biophysical approaches to study ERM interaction with lipid membranes and conformational change in well-defined environments. In vitro studies using biomimetic lipid membranes, especially large unilamellar vesicles (LUVs), giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) and supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) and recombinant proteins help to understand the molecular mechanism of conformational activation of ERM proteins. These tools are aimed to decorticate the different steps of the interaction, to simplify the experiments performed in vivo in much more complex biological environments.