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Updated: Aug 30, 2026

Contrast-Matching Detergent in Small-Angle Neutron Scattering Experiments for Membrane Protein Structural Analysis and Ab Initio Modeling
Published on: October 21, 2018
Use of detergents to study membrane rafts: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Hidehiko Shogomori1, Deborah A Brown
1Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5215, USA.
Abstract:
Eukaryotic cell membranes contain microdomains called lipid rafts, which are cholesterol-rich domains in which lipid acyl chains are tightly packed and highly extended. A variety of proteins associate preferentially with rafts, and this raft association is important in a wide range of functions. A powerful and widely-used method for studying lipid rafts takes advantage of their insolubility in non-ionic detergents. Here we describe the basis of detergent insolubility, and review strengths, limitations, and unresolved puzzles regarding this method.
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