Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 7-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Are The Curves in all the Right Places?

Are The Curves in all the Right Places? Membranes bend as they move. Endoplasmic reticulum tubes and cisternae, Golgi sacs, transport tubules and vesicles, endosomes, and plasma membrane, all have their own curvatures. When membranes undergo fusion or fission, their curvatures become extreme in the fusion pores or the fission necks [1] . Non‐bilayer intermediates have even greater curvatures [2] . The tight curves result in each element of a membrane changing shape. But membranes are not made up of static building blocks, because lipid tails are fluid. However, all lipids are not the same. Different lipids affect fusion in different ways [3] , and fission machines contain enzymes that alter lipid chemical structure [4,5] . Thus, an understanding of membrane fusion and fission requires an understanding of membrane elasticity and structure and the stresses that result from lipid–lipid interactions and depend on lipid composition. Lipids Are Polymorphic The first investigations to invoke lipid shape were a combination of electron microscopy and X‐ray diffraction on a series of lipid/water mixtures [6] . They showed two main structures: lamellar phases in dilute systems and hexagonal phases, predominating as water, is withdrawn from polar head groups ( Fig. 1 A). They introduced the term ‘polymorphic’ for lipid structure, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Traffic Wiley

Are The Curves in all the Right Places?

Zimmerberg, Joshua
Traffic , Volume 1 (4) – Apr 1, 2000
Download PDF
3 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/wiley/are-the-curves-in-all-the-right-places-3Kxpbv5xpy

References (13)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
ISSN
1398-9219
eISSN
1600-0854
DOI
10.1034/j.1600-0854.2000.010409.x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Membranes bend as they move. Endoplasmic reticulum tubes and cisternae, Golgi sacs, transport tubules and vesicles, endosomes, and plasma membrane, all have their own curvatures. When membranes undergo fusion or fission, their curvatures become extreme in the fusion pores or the fission necks [1] . Non‐bilayer intermediates have even greater curvatures [2] . The tight curves result in each element of a membrane changing shape. But membranes are not made up of static building blocks, because lipid tails are fluid. However, all lipids are not the same. Different lipids affect fusion in different ways [3] , and fission machines contain enzymes that alter lipid chemical structure [4,5] . Thus, an understanding of membrane fusion and fission requires an understanding of membrane elasticity and structure and the stresses that result from lipid–lipid interactions and depend on lipid composition. Lipids Are Polymorphic The first investigations to invoke lipid shape were a combination of electron microscopy and X‐ray diffraction on a series of lipid/water mixtures [6] . They showed two main structures: lamellar phases in dilute systems and hexagonal phases, predominating as water, is withdrawn from polar head groups ( Fig. 1 A). They introduced the term ‘polymorphic’ for lipid structure,

Journal

Traffic – Wiley

Published: Apr 1, 2000

There are no references for this article.