Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Jun 15;25(12):1819-23.
doi: 10.1091/mbc.E13-09-0516.

Lipids in cell biology: how can we understand them better?

Eleonora Muro  1 , G Ekin Atilla-Gokcumen  2 , Ulrike S Eggert  3
Affiliations

Lipids in cell biology: how can we understand them better?

Eleonora Muro et al. Mol Biol Cell. .

Abstract

Lipids are a major class of biological molecules and play many key roles in different processes. The diversity of lipids is on the same order of magnitude as that of proteins: cells express tens of thousands of different lipids and hundreds of proteins to regulate their metabolism and transport. Despite their clear importance and essential functions, lipids have not been as well studied as proteins. We discuss here some of the reasons why it has been challenging to study lipids and outline technological developments that are allowing us to begin lifting lipids out of their "Cinderella" status. We focus on recent advances in lipid identification, visualization, and investigation of their biophysics and perturbations and suggest that the field has sufficiently advanced to encourage broader investigation into these intriguing molecules.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIGURE 1:
FIGURE 1:
Chemical and predicted three-dimensional (3D) structures of illustrative lipids. Chemical structures and top and side views are shown for each lipid. C14 and C26 ceramide and a diacyl glycerol (DAG) with and without a double bond are shown to illustrate differences between lipids within the same species. The major variations are in the length of the fatty acid side chain (14 vs. 26 carbons) or the degree of saturation (C14 side chain with zero or one double bond). C14 ceramide vs. DAG (16:0/14:0) is shown to illustrate similar structures that have been assigned to different lipid families. The side chains are the same in both lipids; parts of the head groups vary. The 3D structures of these lipids within membranes, especially the side chain arrangements, will likely adjust depending on the local cellular environment and lipid packing. The 3D structures were obtained using the molefacture tool of VMD 1.9.1 (www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/allversions/cite.html) and minimized with Molecular Operating Environment 2013.08 (Chemical Computing Group, Montreal, Canada) with Amber 99 force field (Cornell et al., 1995).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Anderton CR, Lou K, Weber PK, Hutcheon ID, Kraft ML. Correlated AFM and NanoSIMS imaging to probe cholesterol-induced changes in phase behavior and non-ideal mixing in ternary lipid membranes. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2011;1808:307–315. - PubMed
    1. Atilla-Gokcumen GE, Bedigian AV, Sasse S, Eggert US. Inhibition of glycosphingolipid biosynthesis induces cytokinesis failure. J Am Chem Soc. 2011;133:10010–10013. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Atilla-Gokcumen GE, Castoreno AB, Sasse S, Eggert US. Making the cut: the chemical biology of cytokinesis. ACS Chem Biol. 2010;5:79–90. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Atilla-Gokcumen GE, Muro E, Relat-Goberna J, Sasse S, Bedigian A, Coughlin ML, Garcia-Manyes S, Eggert US. Dividing cells regulate their lipid composition and localization. Cell. 2014;156:428–439. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Berry KA, Hankin JA, Barkley RM, Spraggins JM, Caprioli RM, Murphy RC. MALDI imaging of lipid biochemistry in tissues by mass spectrometry. Chem Rev. 2011;111:6491–6512. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types