The extensive diversity of membrane lipids is rarely appreciated by cell and molecular biologists. Although most researchers are familiar with the three main classes of lipids in animal cell membranes, few realize the enormous combinatorial structural diversity that exists within each lipid class, a diversity that enables functional specialization of lipids. In this brief review, we focus on on...

The intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii develops inside a parasitophorous vacuole (PV) that derives from the host cell plasma membrane during invasion. Previous electron micrograph images have shown that the membrane of this vacuole undergoes an extraordinary remodeling with an extensive network of thin tubules and vesicles, the intravacuolar network (IVN), which fills the lumen of the PV....

The fluidity of the lipids in the membrane of Sindbis virus was studied by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy. The lipids in the viral membrane are noticeably less fluid than the lipids in the membrane of the cells in which the virus was grown. This difference in fluidity is not due simply to differences in lipid composition but instead appears to be the result of the interaction of t...

Sorting of lipids and proteins is a key process allowing eukaryotic cells to execute efficient and accurate intracellular transport and to maintain membrane homeostasis. It occurs during the formation of highly curved transport intermediates that shuttle between cell compartments. Protein sorting is reasonably well described, but lipid sorting is much less understood. Lipid sorting has been pro...

Heterotrimeric G proteins (peripheral proteins) conduct signals from membrane receptors (integral proteins) to regulatory proteins localized to various cellular compartments. They are in excess over any G protein-coupled receptor type on the cell membrane, which is necessary for signal amplification. These facts account for the large number of G protein molecules bound to membrane lipids. Thus,...

The plasma membrane is a highly compartmentalized, dynamic material and this organization is essential for a wide variety of cellular processes. Nanoscale domains allow proteins to organize for cell signaling, endo- and exocytosis, and other essential processes. Even in the absence of proteins, lipids have the ability to organize into domains as a result of a variety of chemical and physical in...

The red cell membrane contains approximately equal amounts of lipids and proteins. Membrane lipids are either phospholipids or neutral lipids, mostly unesterified cholesterol. Membrane phospholipids are asymmetrically arranged into a lipid bilayer two molecules thick. Choline phospholipids are more abundant in the extracellular surface whereas amino phospholipids are more concentrated on the in...

For many decades, Escherichia coli was the main model organism for the study of bacterial membrane lipids. The results obtained served as a blueprint for membrane lipid biochemistry, but it is clear now that there is no such thing as a typical bacterial membrane lipid composition. Different bacterial species display different membrane compositions and even the membrane composition of cells belo...

nowadays, growing interest in the application of nanotechnology in biomedical and biotechnological fields has opened a new avenue to explore the nanoparticles-biological system interaction. indeed, a clear gap is still in the cytotoxic effect of nps on the biological systems. for this purpose, the interaction of the silica oxide nanoparticles (sio2-np) with pc12 cell line, as a model of nervous...

background: nowadays, highly specific aptamers generated by cell selex technology (systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment) are being applied for early detection of cancer cells. prostate specific membrane antigen (psma), over expressed in prostate cancer, is a highly specific marker and therefore can be used for diagnosis of the prostate cancer cells. the aim of the present s...