What is a lipid raft?
(MM) A lipid raft is a segregated cholesterol-rich membrane domain (not sure how to rearrange that much more than from the articles definition…). The word raft is used in place of microdomains. Rafts form due to the segregation of lipids into different phases. It is believed that the properties of lipid rafts, chemical and physical, have something to do with biological function. “The original concept of rafts was used as an explanation for the transport of cholesterol from the trans Golgi network to the plasma membrane.”(wikipedia) Researchers believe that lipid rafts can actually be removed from the plasma membrane. Lipid rafts have been related to immiscibility of ordered and disordered liquid phases (possibly an application for us?). There is also a controversy over the lipid rafts about whether they really exist or not. Some of the arguments against the existence of lipid rafts include that they have not been readily observed in cell systems, only in model membrane, there is no a
