“…By preferentially including some proteins and excluding others, lipid rafts and related membrane microdomains such as caveolae may regulate the sorting and trafficking of certain plasma membrane proteins and lipids and compartmentalize cell-signaling events (Verkade and Simons, 1997;Anderson, 1998;Brown and London, 1998;Horejsi et al, 1999). Although lipid rafts have been inferred from functional and kinetic studies of intact cells (Mays et al, 1995;Hannan and Edidin, 1996;Sheets et al, 1997;Keller and Simons, 1998), most evidence of their existence is based on differential extraction of cells with detergent (Skibbens et al, 1989;Stefanova et al, 1991;Brown and Rose, 1992;Fiedler et al, 1993;Sargiacomo et al, 1993). These studies indicate that in addition to GSL and cholesterol, lipid rafts are enriched in GPI-anchored proteins, some transmembrane proteins, and diacylated cytoplasmic proteins including Src family kinases.…”