Lipid Rafts, Detergent-Resistant Membranes, and Raft Targeting Signals

Abstract

Lipid rafts are liquid-ordered (l_o) phase microdomains proposed to exist in biological membranes. Rafts have been widely studied by isolating l_o-phase detergent-resistant membranes (DRMs) from cells. Recent findings have shown that DRMs are not the same as preexisting rafts, prompting a major revision of the raft model. Nevertheless, raft-targeting signals identified by DRM analysis are often required for protein function, implicating rafts in a variety of cell processes.