TFG - FARMÀCIA - Fisicoquímica i Técniques Instrumentals
Salvador Castell, Marta; Pujol Cubells, Montserrat
Abstract
For a few years, the study of the internal behaviour of the human body has led to investigate in depth the cell and all parts that form it. Many of these studies about cells have focused on a fundamental part: the cell membrane and the lipid bilayer which forms it. For this reason it is necessary to develop tools for the study of lipids that form the cell membrane. The liposomes are membrane models widely used for this purpose. Because of their size, the giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) are the most similar to cells.
GUVs, with their cellular mimetism, allow the study of the cell at different levels and in this case we will focus on the distribution of lipids in the bilayer membrane of the cell. Though the cell membrane is a fluid membrane and dynamic as a whole, in recent years, some specific areas called lipid rafts have been studied. Lipid rafts are membrane microdomains formed by cholesterol, sphyngomielin and saturated phospholipids, those domains have a lower fluidity than the other portions of membrane. This fact, allow to differ between different domains in the membrane cells, on one side a fluid phase called liquid disordered phase (Ld) and another phase, much more rigid, called liquid ordered phase (Lo).
This works shows the framework of the uses of GUVs and different fluorescent probes, with preference towards a phase or another, to study lipids as well as is proposed a method for obtaining GUVs and the observation of lipid rafts.
Keywords: liposomes, GUV, lipid rafts, sondes fluorescents.
Reception date: 25/09/2014
Acceptance date: 20/10/2014