title: Imaging lipid domains in cell membranes: the advent of super-resolution fluorescence microscopy.
abstract: The lipid bilayer of model membranes, liposomes reconstituted from cell lipids, and plasma membrane vesicles and spheres can separate into two distinct liquid phases to yield lipid domains with liquid-ordered and liquid-disordered properties. These observations are the basis of the lipid raft hypothesis that postulates the existence of cholesterol-enriched ordered-phase lipid domains in cell membranes that could regulate protein mobility, localization and interaction. Here we review the evidence that nano-scaled lipid complexes and meso-scaled lipid domains exist in cell membranes and how new fluorescence microscopy techniques that overcome the diffraction limit provide new insights into lipid organization in cell membranes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics, King's College London London, UK.
authors.forename: Dylan M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Owen
authors.affiliation: Centre for Vascular Research and Australian Centre for Nanomedicine, University of New South Wales Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gaus
keywords: cell membranes; fluorescence; lipid rafts; membrane microdomains; super-resolution