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Biophysics

Joint effort bends membrane

Nature volume 463, pages 439–440 (2010)Cite this article

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The curvature of cellular membranes is generated by proteins and lipids. A synthetic experimental system allows the interplay between protein- and lipid-generated bending mechanisms to be studied directly.

A living cell can be thought of as a building of extremely peculiar architecture, in which the walls are formed by films just a few nanometres thick — the cell membranes. The numerous rooms, halls and corridors of the building are the intracellular organelles, such as the endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi complex and mitochondria. These have irregular shapes, consisting of tubules and sheets that are a few tens of nanometres in cross-section1. The shapes are highly dynamic, undergoing constant changes and interconversions. What's more, separate nanospheres and nanotubules bud off from the cell's external and internal membranes, forming transport vessels that ferry biomolecules between destinations within cells.

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Figure 1: Mechanisms of bending in lipid bilayers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michael M. Kozlov is in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel. michk@post.tau.ac.il,

    Michael M. Kozlov

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  1. Michael M. Kozlov
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Kozlov, M. Joint effort bends membrane. Nature 463, 439–440 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/463439a

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