title: Membranes, viruses, detergents, and endosomes.
abstract: The fluid mosaic model for biological membranes was formulated 40 years ago. Ten years later endosomes were discovered as important prelysosomal organelles. At the outset of my research career, I was fortunate to witness both these turning points in biochemistry and cell biology from close up, and to participate in some of the studies. In this short essay, I will describe how this came about, and also try to provide some background as to the general starting situation in those not so distant pioneering years of membrane biology.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemistry, ETH Zurich, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland. ari.helenius@bc.biol.ethz.ch
authors.forename: Ari
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Helenius
mesh_terms: D003902:Detergents / Q000378:metabolism*; D011992:Endosomes / Q000378:metabolism*; D008051:Lipid Bilayers / Q000378:metabolism; D008566:Membranes; D012672:Semliki forest virus / Q000502:physiology; D053586:Virus Internalization; D014780:Viruses / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D003902:Detergents; D008051:Lipid Bilayers