Other Modern Methods for Studying Biomembranes

The cell membrane is a functional lipid–bilayer interface through which cells sense their chemical and physical environments for coordinated proper cellular responses. Due to the heterogeneous and dynamic nature, structural and functional characterization of the cell membrane events presents a great challenge. Thus, it is still not well understood that how cells structurally organize the lipid and protein molecules at the molecular scale in the cell membrane. It is even more intriguing how cells make good use of heterogeneity of local lipid/protein environments to efficiently engage chemical and physical stimuli. Gaining this knowledge is important for functional mapping the relevant signaling pathways, thus allowing more precise and rational intervention and management in disease control and drug developments. With the help of modern biophysical tools such as those described in the previous chapters, studying membrane events is becoming technologically feasible, even in live cells. This chapter will cover more modern biophysical methods together with their applications in membrane study and highlight the power of combinational use of different techniques to obtain more information on the biological events on the cell surface. Here, a particular emphasis is to use examples to illustrate how biological signaling events can be readily dissected with biophysical tools and how knowledge gained with these approaches can be integrated into our understanding of cellular biology.