Lipid domains in biological membranes: Current Opinion in Structural Biology 1993, 3:475–481

https://doi.org/10.1016/0959-440X(93)90070-2Get rights and content

Abstract

There is increasing appreciation for the heterogeneity that exists in the distribution of lipid and protein components within a biological membrane. This review summarizes recent contributions concerning this concept and highlights some current ideas on the existence, formation and function of lipid domains in membranes.

References (58)

  • M. Glaser

    Characterization and Formation of Lipid Domains in Vesicles and Erythrocyte Membranes

    Comments Mol Cell Biophys

    (1992)
  • J.F. Tocanne

    Detection of Lipid Domains in Biological Membranes

    Comments Mol Cell Biophys

    (1992)
  • M. Edidin

    The Variety of Cell Surface Membrane Domains

    Comments Mol Cell Biophys

    (1992)
  • D.E. Wolf

    Lipid Domains: the Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant

    Comments Mol Cell Biophys

    (1992)
  • A.J. Jesaitis

    Signal Transduction in Neutrophil Membrane Domains

    Comments Mol Cell Biophys

    (1992)
  • W.J. Nelson

    Regulation of Cell Surface Polarity from Bacteria to Mammals

    Science

    (1992)
  • K. Simons et al.

    Lipid Sorting in Epithelial Cells

    Biochemistry

    (1988)
  • M.P. Lisanti et al.

    Glycophospholipid Membrane Anchoring Provides Clues to the Mechanism of Protein Sorting in Polarized Epithelial Cells

    Trends Biochem Sci

    (1990)
  • P.R. Dragsten et al.

    Membrane Asymmetry in Epithelia: Is the Tight Junction a Barrier to Diffusion in the Plasma Membrane?

    Nature

    (1981)
  • C.G. Dotti et al.

    Polarized Sorting of Glypiated Proteins in Hippocampal Neurons

    Nature

    (1991)
  • T. Kobayashi et al.

    A Functional Barrier to Movement of Lipids in Polarized Neurons

    Nature

    (1992)
  • M.B. Sankaram et al.

    Determination of Fluid and Gel Domain Sizes in Two-Component, Two-Phase Lipid Bilayers

    Biophys J.

    (1992)
  • W.L.C. Vaz et al.

    Translational Diffusion and Fluid Domain Connectivity in a Two-Components, Two-Phase Phospholipid Bilayer

    Biophys J

    (1989)
  • J.J. Baldassare et al.

    Modification of Membrane Lipid: Physical Properties in Relation to Fatty Acid Structure

    Biochemistry

    (1976)
  • M.B. Jackson et al.

    An Estimate of the Minimum Amount of Fluid Lipid Required for the Growth of Escherichia coli

    Biochim Biophys Acta

    (1978)
  • D.E. Wolf et al.

    Lipid Domains in the Ram Sperm Plasma Membrane Demonstrated by Differential Scanning Calorimetry

  • P.R. Cullis et al.

    Physical Properties and Functional Roles of Lipids in Membranes

  • D. Tang et al.

    E/M Dips: Evidence for Lipids Regularly Distributed into Hexagonal Super-Lattices in Pyrene-PC/DMPC Binary Mixtures at Specific Concentrations

    Biophys J

    (1992)
  • J.A. Virtanen et al.

    Prediction of Patterns for the Regular Distribution of Soluted Guest Molecules in Liquid Crystalline Phospholipid Membranes

    J Mol Electronics

    (1988)
  • Cited by (115)

    • NMR methods for measuring lateral diffusion in membranes

      2013, Chemistry and Physics of Lipids
      Citation Excerpt :

      Lateral diffusion of the lipid and protein components of biological membranes reflects this mosaic quality of biological membranes. Indeed, the ever increasing sophistication of our knowledge of biomembrane organization and functional segregation is due, in large measure, to the increasing sophistication of the experimental tools available for examining lateral diffusion (Jovin and Vaz, 1989; Glaser, 1993; Albertsson, 1995; Somerharju et al., 1999; Vaz and Melo, 2001; Lommerse et al., 2004; Day and Kenworthy, 2009). The most widely used techniques for measuring lateral diffusion are fluorescence-based.

    • Characterization of physical properties of supported phospholipid membranes using imaging ellipsometry at optical wavelengths

      2007, Biophysical Journal
      Citation Excerpt :

      Although such spreading kinetics can be gathered using fluorescence microscopy, quantitative applications of these measurements have met with limitations primarily because of the complex relations between the fluorescence intensities and the lipid environment, which is continuously evolving during the bilayer formation (37). Third, the issues of lateral heterogeneity and phase separation in multicomponent membranes are of considerable importance in understanding how molecular distributions influence localization of many generic membrane processes of great biological relevance (38–40). Fluorescence-based methods, utilizing phase-sensitive probes, have proven very useful in quantifying coexisting phases, but the role of labeled molecules in perturbing the natural phase separation of primary lipids remains ill-understood (41–43).

    • Characterization of two oxidatively modified phospholipids in mixed monolayers with DPPC

      2006, Biophysical Journal
      Citation Excerpt :

      The fluid mosaic model (5) described biomembranes mainly as a diffusion barrier and a structural matrix embedding the active molecules, peripheral and integral membrane proteins, and covalently linked complex carbohydrates. Yet, it has become evident that biomembranes possess a considerable degree of static and dynamic heterogeneity because of i), the large number of different lipid species; and ii), their liquid crystalline nature (1,6–9). Furthermore, the lateral organization and the thermodynamic state of biomembranes determined by their lipids have been suggested to be correlated to the physiological functional states of cells (1), determining, e.g., protein-lipid interactions, further controlling the activity of membrane associated enzymes, for instance (2,3,10–16).

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text