Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 25, 2026

Crystallizing Membrane Proteins for Structure Determination using Lipidic Mesophases
Published on: November 21, 2010
Formation and spatio-temporal evolution of periodic structures in lipid bilayers
Sharon Rozovsky1, Yoshihisa Kaizuka, Jay T Groves
1Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Abstract:
Miscibility phase separation in lipid bilayers is widely implicated as an organizing principle in living cell membranes. However, the chemical and physical aspects of how membrane phase separation modulates protein activity remain obscure. Herein, we describe formation of ordered superstructures of coexisting liquid phases in bilayer membranes. Metastable stripe and hexagonal domain lattices are observed, as well as transitions between them. The high degree of order achieved by these methods facilitates statistical analysis of domain spatial distributions and enables measurement of domain interactions. Such long-range ordering principles may exist in more complicated membrane systems.
Related Concept Videos
Structure of Lipids
Structure of Lipids
Asymmetric Lipid Bilayer
Assembly of the Lipid Bilayer in the ER
A large chunk of any biological membrane is composed of phospholipids. These lipids have a heterogeneous distribution across different subcellular organelles and even between...
Structure of Lipids
Biosynthesis of Lipids

