生物膜的生物物理观——从微区到脂筏

Biophysical Viewpoint of Biomembrane: From Microdomains to Lipid Rafts

大量的实验表明 ,在细胞质膜中 ,由于不同成分具有不同的生物化学特性 ,发生相分离而局部形成微区 .不同的微区可行使不同的功能 .近年来一种富含胆固醇、鞘脂类以及大量的受体和信号分子的液态有序相的微区 ,即脂筏 (lipidrafts) ,由于被发现参与信号转导和一些物质的生理循环过程而备受关注 .随着实验手段的提高 ,人们对生物膜在分子水平上认识的不断深化 ,脂筏结构和功能的物理、化学基础研究方面也取得了初步的进展 .

Many investigations revealed that, because of different biophysical and biochemical properties of different ingredients of plasma membrane, they are phase-separated into local domains. Different domains may have different functions. In the past few years, a special kind of cholesterol, sphingolipids, receptor and signal molecules-rich liquid-ordered domain, lipid rafts, which have been implicated in processes as diverse as signal transduction, cell sort, endocytosis and cholesterol trafficking, have been paid much attention. Hereupon, primary progress has been made in fundamental investigations on the structure and function of lipid rafts.