The Effects Of Different Fatty Acyl Chains On The Distribution Of Glycosylphosphatidylinositol(GPI)-anchored Proteins In The Lipid Rafts

Objective:Many membrane proteins(including enzyme,cell adhesion molecule,receptor) are anchored on plasma membrane by glycosylphosphatidylinositol, and named glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored proteins. GPI-anchored proteins often gather with sphingolipids(including sphingomyelin and glycosphingolipid) and cholesterol to form special plasma membrane microdomains (GPI microdomain). As the structual feature of lipids, GPI microdomain present a lower fluidity lying between gel phase and liquid-crystalline phase,like a raft floating on the liquid lipid bilayer , So be called lipid"rafts". Lipid rafts have many important functions and lot of them related to GPI-anchored proteins . Especially rencent years, lipid rafts are considered a working platform for extracellar signal transmembrane conduction, which has being interesting many researchers. Now much progress in studying of structure and function of lipid rafts have been made, but to clarify thoroughly the function and acting mechanism, there are a lot of subjects to be studied furtherly. As the main component of lipid rafts, the functions of GPI-anchored proteins are related closely to lipid rafts. The location of GPI-anchored proteins in lipid raft is crucial for their function . So making clear the location mechanism of GPI-anchored proteins in lipid raft and influencing factor is very important. GPI-anchored proteins are composed of three parts:phosphatidylinositol , glycon and proteins. Generally, it is considered that the lipid part is the main factor for the distribution of GPI-anchored proteins in the lipid raft. It was found that the...