Microdominios membranales bacterianos semejantes a balsas lipídicas

Abstract

The capacity of biological membranes to compartmentalize various physiological processes such as signal transduction, vesicular traffic, among others, has led to the study of structures known as lipid rafts or membrane microdomains. These microdomains are made of specialized proteins and lipids, which have been widely described in a broad variety of eukaryotic cells. A feature of lipid rafts is the high degree of packaging of their components, which generates less fluidity with respect to the rest of the membrane. The most commonly used technique to characterize these microdomains is the generation of Detergent-Resistant Membranes (DRM), which takes advantage of the physico-chemical characteristics of lipid rafts, whose structural components are resistant to solubilization by detergents. SPFH-domain containing proteins (Stomatin, Prohibitin, Flotillin, HflK/C) are frequently found in DRM preparations and are commonly used as lipid rafts markers. Recently, the widely distribution of SPHF-containing proteins encoded in bacterial chromosomes, has directed our attention to the study of lipid raft-like microdomains in bacterial membranes. In this review, we present some recent advances on the identification and analysis of bacterial lipid raft-like membrane microdomains.