Binding to the plasma membrane induces metavinculin dimerization which stabilizes cardiac adhesion sites. The metavinculin mutation causing the most severe cardiomyopathy prevents metavinculin dimerization. The lipids are shown as spheres and the metavinculin tail domain as a cartoon with the 5 alpha-helices (H1-H5) of the 5-helix bundle colored spectrally (H1, red; H2,  orange; H3,  yellow; H4,  green; H5,  blue). (Image courtesy of the Izard lab.)