Membrane lipid domains and membrane lipid domain preparations: are they the same thing?

Sonnino, Sandro; Prinetti, Alessandro

doi:10.4052/tigg.20.315

Cited by 11 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 170 publications

(234 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The properties of the lipid raft model inferred on the basis of these evidences are basically in agreement with those of the purified detergent-resistant membrane fractions (Sonnino and Prinetti, 2008) and describe membrane domains based on lipid-driven phase separation as relatively large, stable equilibrium structures, that can be affected by artificial or physiological perturbations. However, this scenario clashed with the view of lateral heterogeneity of biological membranes that emerged more recently by studies conducted using high-resolution (in time and space) techniques in unperturbed, living cells (that obviously represent the ultimate test bed for the lipid raft hypothesis) (reviewed in Jacobson et al,2007; Lingwood and Simons, 2010).…”

Section: Liquid-ordered Phase In Real Biological Membranes?supporting

confidence: 74%

“…Many studies on lipid rafts in biological systems rely on the putative resistance of lipid raft components to the solubilization by non-ionic detergents. Detergent-resistant membrane preparations might reflect the properties of lipid rafts in living cells (Sonnino and Prinetti, 2008), however they are undoubtedly systems driven to equilibrium by the specific experimental conditions used for detergent extraction systems. To understand the dynamics (in time and space) of phase separation-driven domains in living cells we still miss adequate experimental tools, even if the first pieces of information in this direction have been recently provided.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Lipids and Membrane Lateral Organization

Sonnino¹,

Prinetti²

2010

Front. Physio.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Shortly after the elucidation of the very basic structure and properties of cellular membranes, it became evident that cellular membranes are highly organized structures with multiple and multi-dimensional levels of order. Very early observations suggested that the lipid components of biological membranes might be active players in the creation of these levels of order. In the late 1980s, several different and diverse experimental pieces of evidence coalesced together giving rise to the lipid raft hypothesis. Lipid rafts became enormously (and, in the opinion of these authors, sometimes acritically) popular, surprisingly not just within the lipidologist community (who is supposed to be naturally sensitive to the fascination of lipid rafts). Today, a PubMed search using the key word “lipid rafts” returned a list of 3767 papers, including 690 reviews (as a term of comparison, searching over the same time span for a very hot lipid-related key word, “ceramide” returned 6187 hits with 799 reviews), and a tremendous number of different cellular functions have been described as “lipid raft-dependent.” However, a clear consensus definition of lipid raft has been proposed only in recent times, and the basic properties, the ruling forces, and even the existence of lipid rafts in living cells has been recently matter of intense debate. The scenario that is gradually emerging from the controversies elicited by the lipid raft hypothesis emphasizes multiple roles for membrane lipids in determining membrane order, that encompass their tendency to phase separation but are clearly not limited to this. In this review, we would like to re-focus the attention of the readers on the importance of lipids in organizing the fine structure of cellular membranes.

show abstract

Section: Liquid-ordered Phase In Real Biological Membranes?supporting

confidence: 74%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lipids and Membrane Lateral Organization

Sonnino¹,

Prinetti²

2010

Front. Physio.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Isolation and Analysis of Detergent-Resistant Membrane Fractions

Aureli

Grassi

Sonnino

et al. 2016

Methods in Molecular Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The hypothesis that the Golgi apparatus is capable of sorting proteins and sending them to the plasma membrane through "lipid rafts," membrane lipid domains highly enriched in glycosphingolipids, sphingomyelin, ceramide, and cholesterol, was formulated by van Meer and Simons in 1988 and came to a turning point when it was suggested that lipid rafts could be isolated thanks to their resistance to solubilization by some detergents, namely Triton X-100. An incredible number of papers have described the composition and properties of detergent-resistant membrane fractions. However, the use of this method has also raised the fiercest criticisms. In this chapter, we would like to discuss the most relevant methodological aspects related to the preparation of detergent-resistant membrane fractions, and to discuss the importance of discriminating between what is present on a cell membrane and what we can prepare from cell membranes in a laboratory tube.

show abstract