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Highly saturated lipid composition of ctenophore cilia: Possible indication of low membrane permeability
Author(s) -
Morris Robert J.,
Bone Q.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
lipids
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.601
H-Index - 120
eISSN - 1558-9307
pISSN - 0024-4201
DOI - 10.1007/bf02534780
Subject(s) - membrane , permeability (electromagnetism) , chemistry , cilium , chromatography , composition (language) , biophysics , biological membrane , biochemistry , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , linguistics , philosophy
Abstract The lipids of ciliary membranes in two species of ctenophore are found to be distinguished by phospholipids containing short chain saturated fatty acids and by saturated sterols. Such a composition is expected to result in a much lower permeability of cilia membranes to water and other ions than the general body membranes. We suggest that this is related to the large surface area of the cilia and is a requirement, on the part of the ctenophore, to control water and ionic fluxes across its surface membranes.