EAN: 9781468485820

BIOLOGICAL MEMBRANES KARTONIERT (TB)

The interface between a living cell and the surrounding world plays a critical role in numerous
complex biological processes. Sperm egg fusion  virus cell fusion  exocytosis  endocytosis  and
ion permeation are a few examples of processes involving membranes. In recent years  powerful
tools such as X-ray crystal­ lography  electron microscopy  nuclear magnetic resonance  and
infra-red and Raman spectroscopy have been developed to characterize the structure and dy­
namics of biomembranes. Despite this progress  many of the factors responsible for the function
of biomembranes are still not well understood. The membrane is a very complicated
supramolecular liquid-crystalline structure that is largely composed of lipids  forming a
bilayer  to which proteins and other biomolecules are anchored. Often  the lipid bilayer
environment is pictured as a hydropho­ bic structureless slab providing a thermodynamic driving
force to partition the amino acids of a membrane protein according to their solubility. However
much of the molecular complexity of the phospholipid bilayer environment is ignored in such a
simplified view. It is likely that the atomic details of the polar head­ group region and the
transition from the bulk water to the hydrophobic core of the membrane are important. An
understanding of the factors responsible for the function of biomembranes thus requires a
better characterization at the molec­ ular level of how proteins interact with lipid molecules
of how lipids affect protein structure and of how lipid molecules might regulate protein
function.

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