Absence of filipin-sterol complexes from large coated pits on the surface of culture cells.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Monolayer cultures of normal or transformed [mouse] fibroblasts and of [rat] liver cells fixed in a glutaraldehyde solution containing 300 .mu.M filipin, a sterol-specific polyene antibiotic, were freeze-fractured to study the distribution of cholesterol within their plasma membranes. Filipin-sterol complexes, recognizable as 25-30 nm protuberances scattered in the fracture face of plasma membrane, were absent from invaginations corresponding to large bristle-coated pits (and possibly also from small flask-shaped invaginations). Invaginating regions on the cell surface appear to be specialized plasma membrane domains with a lower cholesterol content than the surrounding membrane. The localized change in membrane fluidity due to the low cholesterol concentration could play a role in endocytosis.

This publication has 31 references indexed in Scilit: