Structures and dynamics of glycosphingolipid-containing lipid mixtures as raft models of plasma membrane

The structure and function of mammalian plasma membrane microdomains, so-called rafts, are among the hot topics in cell biology, since it is suggested that these domains are involved in important membrane-associated events, especially ones such as signal transduction, which were frequently seen in physiological and immunological studies. In spite of the accumulation of large amounts of evidence, results on physical properties of the structure and dynamics of membranes such as those in intact cells are less abundant. In this report we treat the structure and dynamics of glycosphingolipid (ganglioside)-cholesterol and glycosphingolipid (ganglioside)-cholesterol-phospholipid mixtures used as models of rafts and plasma membranes. The present results clearly show that the incorporation of cholesterol with ganglioside aggregates is limited to a maximum miscibility of the molar ratio between the ganglioside and cholesterol ranging from similar to 1/1 to 1/3 and that small vesicles with diameters of about 250-300 angstrom form. These molar ratios and sizes agree well with the reported constituent ratio and minimum size for the rafts. In the vesicle systems containing ganglioside, cholesterol, and phospholipid (PC, DSPC, DOPC, POPC), the bending modulus tends to take the smallest value at the molar ratio of [gang] / [chol] / [phospholipid] = 0.1/0.1/1. The present results would strongly support a functional physical property of the raft model: sphingolipids and cholesterol clustering to form rafts that move within the fluid lipid bilayer.