Fragments of fictitious cell membrane

2004/09/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Biokimika

Cellular exchange is almost constant through the proteins that the molecule has inserted into the membrane with the environment. But for researchers it is very difficult to investigate the functioning of these proteins, since when extracted from the membrane they lose their function. Now, American researchers present a trick to address this problem.

The trick seems very simple: they introduce the protein they want to investigate in a small piece of discoidal membrane. Thus, the protein continues to work, as if it were still in the actual membrane. These fragments have the same component of the cell membrane, that is, a double layer of lipids.

Although it seems simple, it is not easy to use small pieces of membrane, since they are quickly removed. To maintain the structure, the disc must be surrounded by other proteins. However, once the membrane is stabilized, this new technique has many applications in the field of biochemistry, since the cell has processes based on membrane proteins.