Focus on Lipids and Membranes

This themed issue features a collection of articles that explore long-standing questions in the study of lipids and membranes.

This Perspective highlights the evolution from the use of detergents to detergent-free membrane mimetics, as well as advances in structure determination and mass spectrometry that have allowed new insights into regulation and function of membrane proteins in native-like lipid environments.

The difficulty of antibiotic discovery posed by the double-membrane cell envelope of Gram-negative bacteria and active drug efflux requires better understanding of bacterial permeability and compound accumulation, and more diverse chemical libraries.

The Hedgehog (Hh) receptor PTCH1 uses its transporter-like function to inhibit the GPCR SMO by limiting the pool of accessible membrane cholesterol. Cholesterol acts as a ligand for SMO to activate downstream signaling.

The conformational cycle of a bacterial voltage-gated sodium channel as it transitions from resting to activated open to inactivated closed states can be constructed from various crystal structure snapshots.

The asymmetric distribution of lipids, including cholesterol, in biological membranes established actively by flippases and scramblases has structural, biophysical and functional consequences in cells and implications for communication across membranes.

Ion channel structures reveal mechanisms of lipid action, including how channel gating is altered by direct binding of signaling lipids and those within the membrane itself, as well as mechanical and architectural effects of membrane lipids.