Membrane Glycolipids: Functional Heterogeneity: A Review

Spatial and functional heterogeneity of sphingolipid-rich membrane domains.

Little is known about the organization of lipids in biomembranes. Lipid rafts are defined as sphingolipid- and cholesterol-rich clusters in the membrane. Details of the lipid distribution of lipid rafts are not well characterized mainly because of a lack of appropriate probes. Ganglioside GM1-specific protein, cholera toxin, has long been the only lipid probe of lipid rafts. Recently it was sho...

Functional microdomains of glycolipids with partially fluorinated membrane anchors: impact on cell adhesion.

Functional microdomains of glycolipids were designed by mixing neoglycolipids with partially fluorinated alkyl (F-alkyl) chains and matrix lipids with alkyl chains. Fluorescence images of the mixed lipid monolayers at the air-water interface demonstrated that it is possible to control both size and distribution of the microdomains by means of the strong demixing of alkyl and F-alkyl membrane an...

Cross-Linking of Glycolipids in Erythrocyte Ghost Membrane*

Human erythrocyte ghosts were chemically cross-linked with a family of bifunctional cross-linking reagents, imidoesters. Since the reagents are identical in their chemical structures, except for the number of methylene groups, they differ by that distance between the functional groups. The maximum distance is 4.9 A in dimethyl malonimidate, 6.1 A in dimethyl succinimidate, 8.6 A in dimethyl adi...

Synthesis and protein curing abilities of membrane glycolipids

Molecular simulations of glycolipids: Towards mammalian cell membrane models

Glycolipids are key components of mammalian cell membranes, influencing a diverse range of cellular functions. For example, a number of receptor tyrosine kinases, including the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), are allosterically regulated by the glycolipid monosialodihexosylganglioside (GM3). Recent advances in molecular dynamics methods, especially the development of coarse-grained mod...