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Dynamic, yet structured: The cell membrane three decades after the Singer–Nicolson model
si * 
**
*Department of Biophysics and Cell Biology and
Cell Biophysical Research Group of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Center for Molecular Medicine, Medical
and Health Science Center, University of Debrecen, H-4012, Debrecen, Hungary;
Department of Immunology, Loránd
Eötvös University, H-1117, Budapest, Hungary;
¶Institute of Biochemistry, Biological Research
Center, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, H-6701, Szeged, Hungary; and
||Metabolism Branch, National Cancer Institute,
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-1374
Contributed by T. Farkas, April 29, 2003
Abstract
The fluid mosaic membrane model proved to be a very useful hypothesis in explaining many, but certainly not all, phenomena taking place in biological membranes. New experimental data show that the compartmentalization of membrane components can be as important for effective signal transduction as is the fluidity of the membrane. In this work, we pay tribute to the Singer–Nicolson model, which is near its 30th anniversary, honoring its basic features, "mosaicism" and "diffusion," which predict the interspersion of proteins and lipids and their ability to undergo dynamic rearrangement via Brownian motion. At the same time, modifications based on quantitative data are proposed, highlighting the often genetically predestined, yet flexible, multilevel structure implementing a vast complexity of cellular functions. This new "dynamically structured mosaic model" bears the following characteristics: emphasis is shifted from fluidity to mosaicism, which, in our interpretation, means nonrandom codistribution patterns of specific kinds of membrane proteins forming small-scale clusters at the molecular level and large-scale clusters (groups of clusters, islands) at the submicrometer level. The cohesive forces, which maintain these assemblies as principal elements of the membranes, originate from within a microdomain structure, where lipid–lipid, protein–protein, and protein–lipid interactions, as well as sub- and supramembrane (cytoskeletal, extracellular matrix, other cell) effectors, many of them genetically predestined, play equally important roles. The concept of fluidity in the original model now is interpreted as permissiveness of the architecture to continuous, dynamic restructuring of the molecular- and higher-level clusters according to the needs of the cell and as evoked by the environment.
Abbreviations: S-N model, Singer–Nicolson fluid mosaic membrane model; FRET, fluorescence resonance energy transfer; TCR, T cell antigen receptor.
G.V. and J.S. contributed equally to this work.
** To whom correspondence should be sent at the * address. E-mail: dami{at}jaguar.dote.hu.
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