Open AccessEndothelium in Spots – High-Content Imaging of Lipid Rafts Clusters in db/db Mice
Author(s) -
Marta Pilarczyk,
Łukasz Mateuszuk,
Anna Ryguła,
Mariusz Kępczyński,
Stefan Chłopicki,
Małgorzata Barańska,
Agnieszka Kaczor
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0106065
Subject(s) - lipid raft , microbiology and biotechnology , raft , sphingolipid , endothelium , chemistry , lipid microdomain , biophysics , signal transduction , biology , membrane , biochemistry , endocrinology , organic chemistry , copolymer , polymer
Lipid rafts (LRs) are dynamic, sterol- and sphingolipid-enriched nanodomains involved in the regulation of cellular functions and signal transduction, that upon stimuli, via (e.g. association of raft proteins and lipids), may cluster into domains of submicron or micron scale. Up to date, however, lipid raft clusters were observed only under artificially promoted conditions and their formation in vivo has not been confirmed. Using non-destructive approach involving Raman and Atomic Force Microscopy imaging we demonstrated the presence of clustered lipid rafts in endothelium of the aorta of the db/db mice that represent a reliable murine model of type 2 diabetes. The raft clusters in the aorta of diabetic mice were shown to occupy a considerably larger (about 10-fold) area of endothelial cells surface as compared to the control. Observation of pathology-promoted LRs confirms that the cellular increase of lipid content results in clustering of LRs. Clustering of LRs leads to the formation of assemblies with diameters up to 3 micrometers and increased lipid character. This massive clustering of lipid rafts in diabetes may trigger a signaling cascade leading to vascular inflammation.