Functional Properties of Glycosphingolipid Aggregates and Mixtures with Cholesterol and Phospholipid

Abstract

The structure and function of lipid microdomains in mammalian plasma membrane, so-called rafts are among the hot topics in cell biology, since these domains are assumed to be involved in important membrane-associated events, such as signal transduction, which were reported in physiological and immunological studies. Major components of rafts are glycosphingolipids (GSLs). Gangliosides are main species of GSLs and around 80 species are known. In spite of accumulation of amounts of evidence on the physiological functions of GSLs and rafts, the physicochemical properties of the structure and dynamics of membranes occluding GSLs have been less abundant and confuse. In these ten years we have been studying and clarified unique functional structural features by using synchrotron X-ray scattering and neutron elastic and quasi-elastic scattering techniques complementary. This report is focused on how to clarify and characterize lipid membrane interfaces by using solution X-ray and neutron scattering methods with referring our major findings on the structure and dynamics of GSLs and lipid mixtures containing GSLs as a model of rafts.