Destination lipid rafts

[Imaging lipid rafts].

Lipid rafts are plasma membrane microdomains enriched in sphingolipids and cholesterol. These domains have been suggested to serve as platforms for various cellular events, such as signaling and membrane trafficking. However, little is known about the distribution and dynamics of lipids in these microdomains. Here we report investigations carried out using recently developed probes for the lipi...

Cholesterol, lipid rafts, and disease.

Recent controversy surrounding lipid rafts.

Lipid rafts (LRs)are highly enriched in glycosphingolipids, sphingomyelins, and cholesterol membrane microdomains, existing in a liquid-ordered phase of the plasma membrane. In the literature, LRs are also known as detergent-insoluble membranes, detergent-resistant membranes, glycosphingolipids-enriched membranes, detergent-insoluble glycolipid-rich membranes, and Triton-insoluble floating frac...

Lipid Rafts Elusive or Illusive?

There has been considerable recent interest in the possibility that the plasma membrane contains lipid "rafts," microdomains enriched in cholesterol and sphingolipids. It has been suggested that such rafts could play an important role in many cellular processes including signal transduction, membrane trafficking, cytoskeletal organization, and pathogen entry. However, rafts have proven difficul...

Lipid rafts and insulin signaling.

Lipid rafts are domains within the plasma membrane that are enriched in cholesterol and lipids with saturated acyl chains. Specific proteins, including many signaling proteins, segregate into lipid rafts, and this process is important for certain signal transduction events in a variety of cell types. Within the past decade, data have emerged from many laboratories that implicate lipid rafts as ...