A biological membrane, biomembrane or cell membrane is a selectively permeable membrane that separates the interior of a cell from the external environment or creates intracellular compartments by serving as a boundary between one part of the cell and another. Biological membranes, in the form of eukaryotic cell membranes, consist of a phospholipid bilayer with embedded, integral and peripheral proteins used in communication and transportation of chemicals and ions. The bulk of lipids in a cell membrane provides a fluid matrix for proteins to rotate and laterally diffuse for physiological functioning. Proteins are adapted to high membrane fluidity environment of the lipid bilayer with the presence of an annular lipid shell, consisting of lipid molecules bound tightly to the surfac of integral membrane proteins. The cell membranes are different from the isolating tissues formed by layers of cells, such as mucous membranes, basement membranes, and serous membranes.
The endomembrane system is composed of the different membranes (endomembranes) that are suspended in the cytoplasm within a eukaryotic cell. These membranes divide the cell into functional and structural compartments, or organelles. In eukaryotes the organelles of the endomembrane system include: the nuclear membrane, the endoplasmic reticulum, the Golgi apparatus, lysosomes, vesicles, endosomes, and plasma (cell) membrane among others. The system is defined more accurately as the set of membranes that forms a single functional and developmental unit, either being connected directly, or exchanging material through vesicle transport. Importantly, the endomembrane system does not include the membranes of plastids or mitochondria, but might have evolved partially from the actions of the latter.
A lipoprotein is a biochemical assembly whose primary function is to transport hydrophobic lipid molecules in water, as in blood plasma or other extracellular fluids. They consist of a triglyceride and cholesterol center, surrounded by a phospholipid outer shell, with the hydrophilic portions oriented outward toward the surrounding water and lipophilic portions oriented inward toward the lipid center. A special kind of protein, called apolipoprotein, is embedded in the outer shell, both stabilising the complex and giving it a functional identity that determines its role.
In biology, cell theory is a scientific theory first formulated in the mid-nineteenth century, that living organisms are made up of cells, that they are the basic structural/organizational unit of all organisms, and that all cells come from pre-existing cells. Cells are the basic unit of structure in all living organisms and also the basic unit of reproduction.
The lipid bilayer is a thin polar membrane made of two layers of lipid molecules. These membranes are flat sheets that form a continuous barrier around all cells. The cell membranes of almost all organisms and many viruses are made of a lipid bilayer, as are the nuclear membrane surrounding the cell nucleus, and membranes of the membrane-bound organelles in the cell. The lipid bilayer is the barrier that keeps ions, proteins and other molecules where they are needed and prevents them from diffusing into areas where they should not be. Lipid bilayers are ideally suited to this role, even though they are only a few nanometers in width, because they are impermeable to most water-soluble (hydrophilic) molecules. Bilayers are particularly impermeable to ions, which allows cells to regulate salt concentrations and pH by transporting ions across their membranes using proteins called ion pumps.
The fluid mosaic model explains various characteristics regarding the structure of functional cell membranes. According to this biological model, there is a lipid bilayer in which protein molecules are embedded. The phospholipid bilayer gives fluidity and elasticity to the membrane. Small amounts of carbohydrates are also found in the cell membrane. The biological model, which was devised by Seymour Jonathan Singer and Garth L. Nicolson in 1972, describes the cell membrane as a two-dimensional liquid where embedded proteins are generally randomly distributed. For example, it is stated that "A prediction of the fluid mosaic model is that the two-dimensional long-range distribution of any integral protein in the plane of the membrane is essentially random."
The plasma membranes of cells contain combinations of glycosphingolipids, cholesterol and protein receptors organised in glycolipoprotein lipid microdomains termed lipid rafts. Their existence in cellular membranes remains controversial. Indeed, Kervin and Overduin imply that lipid rafts are misconstrued protein islands, which they propose form through a proteolipid code. Nonetheless, it has been proposed that they are specialized membrane microdomains which compartmentalize cellular processes by serving as organising centers for the assembly of signaling molecules, allowing a closer interaction of protein receptors and their effectors to promote kinetically favorable interactions necessary for the signal transduction. Lipid rafts influence membrane fluidity and membrane protein trafficking, thereby regulating neurotransmission and receptor trafficking. Lipid rafts are more ordered and tightly packed than the surrounding bilayer, but float freely within the membrane bilayer. Although more common in the cell membrane, lipid rafts have also been reported in other parts of the cell, such as the Golgi apparatus and lysosomes.
The Davson–Danielli model was a model of the plasma membrane of a cell, proposed in 1935 by Hugh Davson and James Danielli. The model describes a phospholipid bilayer that lies between two layers of globular proteins, which is both trilaminar and lipoprotinious. The phospholipid bilayer had already been proposed by Gorter and Grendel in 1925; however, the flanking proteinaceous layers in the Davson–Danielli model were novel and intended to explain Danielli's observations on the surface tension of lipid bi-layers.
A cell membrane defines a boundary between a cell and its environment. The primary constituent of a membrane is a phospholipid bilayer that forms in a water-based environment due to the hydrophilic nature of the lipid head and the hydrophobic nature of the two tails. In addition there are other lipids and proteins in the membrane, the latter typically in the form of isolated rafts.
Hugh Davson, Baron Davson was an English physiologist who worked on membrane transport and ocular fluids.
Cell theory has its origins in seventeenth century microscopy observations, but it was nearly two hundred years before a complete cell membrane theory was developed to explain what separates cells from the outside world. By the 19th century it was accepted that some form of semi-permeable barrier must exist around a cell. Studies of the action of anesthetic molecules led to the theory that this barrier might be made of some sort of fat (lipid), but the structure was still unknown. A series of pioneering experiments in 1925 indicated that this barrier membrane consisted of two molecular layers of lipids—a lipid bilayer. New tools over the next few decades confirmed this theory, but controversy remained regarding the role of proteins in the cell membrane. Eventually the fluid mosaic model was composed in which proteins “float” in a fluid lipid bilayer "sea". Although simplistic and incomplete, this model is still widely referenced today.
A model lipid bilayer is any bilayer assembled in vitro, as opposed to the bilayer of natural cell membranes or covering various sub-cellular structures like the nucleus. They are used to study the fundamental properties of biological membranes in a simplified and well-controlled environment, and increasingly in bottom-up synthetic biology for the construction of artificial cells. A model bilayer can be made with either synthetic or natural lipids. The simplest model systems contain only a single pure synthetic lipid. More physiologically relevant model bilayers can be made with mixtures of several synthetic or natural lipids.
Hydrophobic mismatch is the difference between the thicknesses of hydrophobic regions of a transmembrane protein and of the biological membrane it spans. In order to avoid unfavorable exposure of hydrophobic surfaces to water, the hydrophobic regions of transmembrane proteins are expected to have approximately the same thickness as the hydrophobic region of the surrounding lipid bilayer. Nevertheless, the same membrane protein can be encountered in bilayers of different thickness. In eukaryotic cells, the plasma membrane is thicker than the membranes of the endoplasmic reticulum. Yet all proteins that are abundant in the plasma membrane are initially integrated into the endoplasmic reticulum upon synthesis on ribosomes. Transmembrane peptides or proteins and surrounding lipids can adapt to the hydrophobic mismatch by different means.
James Frederic Danielli FRS (1911–1984) was an English biologist.
The cell membrane is a biological membrane that separates and protects the interior of a cell from the outside environment. The cell membrane consists of a lipid bilayer, made up of two layers of phospholipids with cholesterols interspersed between them, maintaining appropriate membrane fluidity at various temperatures. The membrane also contains membrane proteins, including integral proteins that span the membrane and serve as membrane transporters, and peripheral proteins that loosely attach to the outer (peripheral) side of the cell membrane, acting as enzymes to facilitate interaction with the cell's environment. Glycolipids embedded in the outer lipid layer serve a similar purpose.
The fences and pickets model of plasma membrane is a concept of cell membrane structure suggesting that the fluid plasma membrane is compartmentalized by actin-based membrane-skeleton "fences" and anchored transmembrane protein "pickets". This model differs from older cell membrane structure concepts such as the Singer-Nicolson fluid mosaic model and the Saffman-Delbrück two-dimensional continuum fluid model that view the membrane as more or less homogeneous. The fences and pickets model was proposed to explain observations of molecular traffic made due to recent advances in single molecule tracking techniques.
Hop diffusion is a non-Brownian diffusion of proteins and lipid molecules within the plasma membrane. Hop diffusion occurs due to the discontinuity of the cell cytoplasmic membrane. According to the fences and pickets model, plasma membrane is compartmentalized by actin-based membrane-skeleton "fences", that occur when cytoplasmic domains collide with the actin-based membrane skeleton; and anchored-transmembrane protein "pickets". Due to these obstacles membrane proteins undergo temporary confinement within 30–700- nm compartments with infrequent intercompartmental hops.
Annular lipids are a set of lipids or lipidic molecules which preferentially bind or stick to the surface of membrane proteins in biological cells. They constitute a layer, or an annulus/ shell, of lipids which are partially immobilized due to the existence of lipid-protein interactions. Polar headgroups of these lipids bind to the hydrophilic part of the membrane protein(s) at the inner and outer surfaces of lipid bilayer membrane. The hydrophobic surface of the membrane proteins is bound to the apposed lipid fatty acid chains of the membrane bilayer. For integral membrane proteins spanning the thickness of the membrane bilayer, these annular/shell lipids may act like a lubricating layer on the proteins' surfaces, thereby facilitating almost free rotation and lateral diffusion of membrane proteins within the 2-dimensional expanse of the biological membrane(s). Outside the layer of shell/annular lipids, lipids are not tied down to protein molecules. However, they may be slightly restricted in their segmental motion freedom due to mild peer pressure of protein molecules, if present in high concentration, which arises from extended influence of protein-lipid interaction. Membrane areas away from protein molecules contain lamellar phase bulk lipids, which are largely free from any restraining effects due to protein-lipid interactions. Thermal denaturation of membrane proteins may destroy the secondary and tertiary structure of membrane proteins, exposing newer surfaces to membrane lipids and therefore increasing the number of lipids molecules in the annulus/shell layer. This phenomenon can be studied by the spin label electron paramagnetic resonance technique. The protein-lipid binding are dependent on OmpF pH levels and their structural features and location of the membranes. When said lipids bind to OmpF it is sensitive to changes that may occur in the electrospray polarity.
Garth L. Nicolson is an American biochemist who made a landmark scientific model for cell membrane, known as the fluid mosaic model. He is the founder of The Institute for Molecular Medicine at California, and he serves as the president, chief scientific officer and emeritus professor of molecular pathology. He is also a conjoint professor in the Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Newcastle, Australia.
Cubosomes are discrete, sub-micron, nanostructured particles of the bicontinuous cubic liquid crystalline phase. The term "bicontinuous" refers to two distinct hydrophilic regions separated by the bilayer. Bicontinuous cubic crystalline materials have been an active research topic because their structure lends itself well to controlled-release applications.
