Is plasma membrane lipid composition defined in the exocytic or the endocytic pathway?
Compared with intracellular membranes, the plasma membrane is rich in cholesterol and sphingomyelin. How does this distinct composition arise? Here David Allan and Karl-Josef Kallen take a critical view of the belief that these lipids arrive at the plasma membrane via vesicular traffic from the Golgi complex and propose instead that they may be accreted in the endocytic recycling pathway.
Allan
D
D
Department of Physiology, University College London, UK.
Kallen
K J
KJ