Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2009
The major elements of membranes, such as proteins, lipids and polysaccharides, are in dynamic interaction with each other (Alberts et al. 1983). Protein diffusion in the lipid matrix of the membrane, the lipid diffusion and dynamic domain formation below and above their transition temperature from gel to fluid state, have many functional implications. This type of behaviour of membranes is often summarized in one frequently used word membrane fluidity (coined by Shinitzky & Henkart, 1979). The dynamic behaviour of the cell membrane includes rotational, translational and segmental movements of membrane elements (or their domain-like associations) in the plane of, and perpendicular to the membrane. The ever changing proximity relationships form a dynamic pattern of lipids, proteins and saccharide moieties and are usually described as ‘cell-surface dynamics’ (Damjanovich et al. 1981). The knowledge about the above defined behaviour originates from experiments performed mostly on cytoplasmic membranes of eukaryotic cells. Nevertheless numerous data are available also on the mitochondrial and nuclear membranes, as well as endo (sarco-)plasmic reticulum (Martonosi, 1982; Slater, 1981; Siekevitz, 1981).
To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.