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Related Concept Videos

Protein Diffusion in the Membrane01:24

Protein Diffusion in the Membrane

Proteins show rotational as well as lateral diffusion across the membrane. The lateral diffusion of proteins was confirmed through the cell fusion experiment where mouse and human cells were fused, resulting in hybrid cells. When the human and mouse cells fused, the specific membrane proteins on human and mouse cells were marked with the red and green-fluorescent markers, respectively. Initially, the red and green fluorescence was located on the respective hemisphere of the cell. As time...
Diffusion01:12

Diffusion

Diffusion is the passive movement of substances down their concentration gradients—requiring no expenditure of cellular energy. Substances, such as molecules or ions, diffuse from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration in the cytosol or across membranes. Eventually, the concentration will even out, with the substance moving randomly but causing no net change in concentration. Such a state is called dynamic equilibrium, which is essential for maintaining overall...
Diffusion01:21

Diffusion

Diffusion is a type of passive transport. In passive transport, a substance tends to move from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration until the concentration is equal across the space. For example, take the diffusion of substances through the air. When someone opens a perfume bottle in a room filled with people, the perfume is at its highest concentration in the bottle and is at its lowest at the edges of the room. The perfume vapor will diffuse, or spread away, from the...
Facilitated Diffusion01:16

Facilitated Diffusion

The plasma membrane, a critical structure in cellular biology, houses an array of transporters, or carrier proteins, interspersed within its lipid bilayer. These proteins play a crucial role in solute transport through facilitated diffusion, a form of passive diffusion that uses transporters to move the molecules across the membrane.
In this process, substrates such as organic compounds and ions interact with a transporter on one side, triggering conformational changes in proteins that enable...
The Significance of Membrane Transport01:44

The Significance of Membrane Transport

The transport of solutes across the cell membrane is essential for metabolic processes, like maintaining cell size and volume, generating the action potential, exchanging nutrients and gases, etc. Membrane transport can be either passive or active. It can be simple diffusion, facilitated, or mediated transport aided by transport proteins such as transporters and channels.
Transporters facilitate either an active or passive movement of solutes. They can allow a single-molecule transport down its...
Overview of Protein Sorting and Transport01:45

Overview of Protein Sorting and Transport

Eukaryotic cells have different membrane-bound organelles with distinct protein requirements. The process by which proteins are targeted to a specific organelle is called protein sorting.
Protein sorting can be of two types: signal-based sorting and vesicle-based trafficking. In signal-based sorting, specific amino acid sequences called sorting signals target proteins to the proper location inside the cell either via gated transport or by protein translocation.  In gated transport, folded...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Lateral Diffusion and Exocytosis of Membrane Proteins in Cultured Neurons Assessed using Fluorescence Recovery and Fluorescence-loss Photobleaching
11:58

Lateral Diffusion and Exocytosis of Membrane Proteins in Cultured Neurons Assessed using Fluorescence Recovery and Fluorescence-loss Photobleaching

Published on: February 29, 2012

Lateral diffusion of membrane proteins.

Sivaramakrishnan Ramadurai1, Andrea Holt, Victor Krasnikov

  • 1Department of Biochemistry, Groningen Biomolecular science and Biotechnology Institute & Zernike Institute of Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands.

Journal of the American Chemical Society
|August 14, 2009
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Integral membrane protein mobility in giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) was measured. Protein diffusion slows with increasing concentration, following the Saffman-Delbruck model at low densities.

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Lateral Diffusion and Exocytosis of Membrane Proteins in Cultured Neurons Assessed using Fluorescence Recovery and Fluorescence-loss Photobleaching
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Published on: February 29, 2012

From Fast Fluorescence Imaging to Molecular Diffusion Law on Live Cell Membranes in a Commercial Microscope
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Spot Variation Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy for Analysis of Molecular Diffusion at the Plasma Membrane of Living Cells
05:56

Spot Variation Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy for Analysis of Molecular Diffusion at the Plasma Membrane of Living Cells

Published on: November 12, 2020

Area of Science:

  • Biophysics
  • Membrane Biology
  • Protein Dynamics

Background:

  • Integral membrane proteins are crucial for cellular functions.
  • Understanding their lateral mobility is key to comprehending membrane organization and function.
  • Previous models like Saffman-Delbruck provide a framework for protein diffusion in lipid bilayers.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To quantify the lateral mobility of various integral membrane proteins within giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs).
  • To investigate the influence of protein concentration and size on diffusion coefficients.
  • To assess the applicability of the Saffman-Delbruck model under different conditions.

Main Methods:

  • Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS) was employed to measure lateral diffusion.
  • Integral membrane proteins (receptors, channels, transporters) and an alpha-helical peptide were fluorescently labeled.
  • Proteins were reconstituted into GUVs at varying protein-to-lipid ratios.

Main Results:

  • At low protein densities (10-100 proteins/µm²), diffusion coefficients showed weak dependence on protein radius, aligning with the Saffman-Delbruck model.
  • At high protein densities (up to 3000 proteins/µm²), lateral diffusion decreased linearly with increasing protein concentration.
  • Findings suggest significant impact of protein crowding on mobility.

Conclusions:

  • Protein-protein interactions and membrane crowding significantly impact lateral mobility.
  • Diffusion measurements can be utilized to infer protein geometry and oligomerization state.
  • The study provides insights into protein dynamics relevant to crowded biological membranes.