Abstract
Lipid rafts are sterol and sphingolipid rich membrane domains that possibly may play roles in multiple cellular processes. These domains are still the matter of debate and it is still unknown by which mechanism if any and organisms promote their formation. This study centers on the ease of in vitro formation of lipid rafts-like structures as it relates to the relative availability of sphingolipids, phospholipids, cholesterol, and membrane proteins. Following a 12 h incubation period, isolation and extraction of the lipid rafts-like assemblies, the composition of the structures was evaluated using HPLC. Cholesterol and sphingomyelin were detected at 206 nm and phosphatidylcholine was detected at 254 nm. Identification of lactose permease, a typical membrane protein, was done using FTIR. The thermal stability of the produced structures was also determined. Results show that the addition of cholesterol significantly increased both the amount of insoluble lipid rafts-like structures and their stability, and that the availability of a minimum amount of sphingolipid was necessary to produce larger amounts of more stable structures. However, the addition of phospholipids hindered the formation of lipid rafts-like assemblies and those formed were generally less stable.
Highlights
The plasma membrane is mostly composed of loosely packed phospholipids capable of rapid lateral diffusion.How to cite this paper: Nguyen, T.T.M., Chintamsetti, V.R. and Chennuru, S. (2016) The Stability of Lipid Rafts-Like MicroDomains Is Dependent on the Available Amount of Cholesterol
This paper reports on the in vitro systematic investigation of the effect of the variation of the four most important components of lipid rafts—phospholipids, sphingolipids, cholesterol, membrane proteins—on the formation of detergent insoluble micro domains within liposomes
As cholesterol binds in-between two sphingomyelin molecules the assembly is rigid and more resistant to solvation, an increase in sphingolipids and a minimum amount of cholesterol may lead to lipid raft formation
Summary
The plasma membrane is mostly composed of loosely packed phospholipids capable of rapid lateral diffusion.How to cite this paper: Nguyen, T.T.M., Chintamsetti, V.R. and Chennuru, S. (2016) The Stability of Lipid Rafts-Like MicroDomains Is Dependent on the Available Amount of Cholesterol. Liquid-ordered and disordered states can coexist on the same plasma membrane and those liquid-ordered domains can remain insular and maintain their relative rigidity among the neighboring phospholipids’ bilayers [1] [2]. Such domains can, under proper circumstances of adequate amounts of cholesterol and sphingolipids, form into more stable structures within the membrane called lipid rafts [3]. Lipid rafts are micro-domains within cell membranes that are enriched in cholesterol and sphingolipids. These assemblies can be separated and identified because they are components of the membranes that are resistant to solubility using detergent
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