Lipid rafts and signal transduction

Abstract

Signal transduction is initiated by complex protein–protein interactions between ligands, receptors and kinases, to name only a few. It is now becoming clear that lipid micro-environments on the cell surface — known as lipid rafts — also take part in this process. Lipid rafts containing a given set of proteins can change their size and composition in response to intra- or extracellular stimuli. This favours specific protein–protein interactions, resulting in the activation of signalling cascades.