purpose: to describe a novel surgical technique for in vivo limbal stem cell cultivation for reconstruction of corneal epithelium in total limbal stem cell deficiency (lscd). methods: patients suffering from chronic total unilateral lscd due to a chemical injury were sequentially included. one small limbal block (2x1 mm) harvested from contralateral healthy eye sutured over the amniotic membran...

Lipids are the building blocks of cellular membranes and are synthesized at distinct parts of the cell. A precise control of lipid synthesis and distribution is crucial for cell function and survival. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the major lipid-synthesizing organelle. However, a subset of lipids is synthesized within mitochondria, and this aspect has become a focus of recent lipid researc...

Nanoparticles’ uptake by cancer cells upon reaching the tumor microenvironment is often rate-limiting step in nanomedicine. Herein, we report that inclusion of aminopolycarboxylic acid conjugated lipids, such as EDTA- or DTPA-hexadecylamide lipids liposome-like porphyrin nanoparticles (PS) enhanced their intracellular 25-fold, which was attributed to these lipids’ ability fluidize cell membrane...

this study investigated the cytochemical responses in hediste diversicolor exposed to the environmental concentrations of cadmium (1µm cd), copper (1µm cu) and to their equimolar mixture for 48h. lysosomal membrane stability (lms), neutral lipids (nl) level, lipofuscin (lf) content and ca2+-atpase activity were determined as early subcellular biomarkers of toxicity. the biomarker battery pointe...

By virtue of the strength of hydrophobic interactions and the malleability of phospholipid acyl chains, membrane lipids become one of the important glues of life. The liquid-crystalline organization of the bilayer component of biological membranes enables the membranes to be effective, cohesive, and yet flexible, barriers separating two fluid compartments. Integral membrane proteins are imbedde...

We describe how membrane proteins diffuse laterally in the membrane plane together with the lipids surrounding them. We find a number of intriguing phenomena. The lateral displacements of the protein and the lipids are strongly correlated, as the protein and the neighboring lipids form a dynamical protein-lipid complex, consisting of approximately 50-100 lipids. The diffusion of the lipids in t...

Cell division entails dramatic membrane rearrangements, but what is the role of lipids in the process? Eggert et al. explore the dynamics of the lipidome during cell division and provide new insights on the functions of specific lipids in cytokinesis.

As charged macromolecules adsorb and diffuse on cell membranes in a large variety of cell signaling processes, they can attract or repel oppositely charged lipids. This results in lateral membrane rearrangement and affects the dynamics of protein function. To address such processes quantitatively we introduce a dynamic mean-field scheme that allows self-consistent calculations of the equilibriu...