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Transient confinement zones: A type of lipid raft?
Author(s) -
Chen Yun,
Yang Bing,
Jacobson Ken
Publication year - 2004
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/s11745-004-1337-9
Subject(s) - raft , lipid raft , membrane , biophysics , microbiology and biotechnology , transient (computer programming) , cell membrane , signal transduction , chemistry , nanotechnology , biology , materials science , biochemistry , computer science , organic chemistry , copolymer , operating system , polymer
Many important signaling events are initiated at the cell membrane. To facilitate efficient signal transduction upon stimulation, membrane microdomains, also known as lipid rafts, are postulated to serve as platforms to recruit components involved in the signaling complex, but few methods exist to study rafts in vivo . Single particle tracking provides an approach to study the plasma membrane of living cells on the nano‐scale. The trajectories of single gold particles bound to membrane proteins and lipids are characterized in terms of both random and confined diffusion; the latter occurs in “transient confinement zones”. Here we review transient confinement zones and some of their implications for membrane structure and function.