Restricted Lateral Diffusion of PH-20, a PI-Anchored Sperm Membrane Protein

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Abstract
The rate of lateral diffusion of integral membrane proteins is constrained in cells, but the constraining factors for most membrane proteins have not been defined. PH-20, a sperm surface protein involved in sperm-egg adhesion, was shown to be anchored in the plasma membrane by attachment to the lipid phosphatidylinositol and to have a diffusion rate that is highly restricted on testicular sperm, being more than a thousand times slower than lipid diffusion. These results support the hypothesis that lateral mobility of a membrane protein can be regulated exclusively by interactions of its ectodomain.