Eyster KM. The membrane and lipids as integral participants in signal transduction: lipid signal transduction for the non-lipid biochemist. Adv Physiol Educ 31: 5–16, 2007; doi:10.1152/advan. 00088.2006.—Reviews of signal transduction have often focused on the cascades of protein kinases and protein phosphatases and their cytoplasmic substrates that become activated in response to extracellular...

Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) is capable of imaging biological molecules across single cells with several hundred nanometer lateral resolution, and has the potential to examine the functional segregation of lipids in cell membranes. Lipids are believed to play a crucial role in fundamental biological functions, such as intercellular communication. For example, high curvature lipids may...

Butenafine (N-4-tert-butylbenzyl-N-methyl-1-naphtalenemethylamine hydrochloride) is an antifungal agent of the benzylamine class that has excellent therapeutic efficacy and a remarkably long duration of action when applied topically to treat various mycoses. Given the lipophilic nature of the molecule, efficacy may be related to an interaction with cell membrane phospholipids and permeabilizati...

Cellular membranes are complex mixtures of lipids, proteins, and other small molecules that provide functional, dynamic barriers between the cell and its environment, as well as between environments within the cell. The lipid composition of the membrane is highly specific and controlled in terms of both content and lipid localization. The membrane structure results from the complex interplay be...

Supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) are one of the most common cell-membrane model systems to study cell-cell interactions. Nickel-chelating lipids frequently used functionalize SLB with polyhistidine-tagged ligands. We show here that these by themselves can induce calcium signaling in T cells, also when having protein ligands on SLB. This is important avoid “false” events cell studies SLBs, but be...

Rough endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, and plasma membrane rich cell fractions were isolated from livers of rats under similar conditions of age and diet for analysis of phospholipid classes and fatty acid composition. Phosphatidylcholine was the major phospholipid of all membrane types. Golgi apparatus was intermediate between endoplasmic reticulum and plasma membrane with respect to le...

Reviews of signal transduction have often focused on the cascades of protein kinases and protein phosphatases and their cytoplasmic substrates that become activated in response to extracellular signals. Lipids, lipid kinases, and lipid phosphatases have not received the same amount of attention as proteins in studies of signal transduction. However, lipids serve a variety of roles in signal tra...

The establishment and maintenance of cell polarity is important to a wide range of biological processes ranging from chemotaxis to embryogenesis. An essential feature of cell polarity is the asymmetric organization of proteins and lipids in the plasma membrane. In this article, we discuss how polarity regulators such as small GTP-binding proteins and phospholipids spatially and kinetically cont...

If RNA ruled the last decade and DNA dominated the previous one, could the next decade be the one for lipids? The ultimate energy storage units, lipids are well known for encasing the cell in a watertight membrane, but lipids are oh-so much more. In particular, lipids are emerging as key signaling molecules in eukaryotes, transmittingmessages both within and between cells. In this Select, we ex...

Free and glycosylated sterols localize in the plant cell plasma membrane, where combination with other lipids regulate its structure function. The role of regulating membrane-associated biological processes is more relevant plants like tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), which are predominant sterols. A proper ratio free versus has proven to be essential for performance several species, but almost n...