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Eukaryotic Cell, June 2006, p. 945-953, Vol. 5, No. 6
1535-9778/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/EC.00206-05
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Institute of Cell Biology and Plant Physiology, University of Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany,1 Institute of Microbiology, CAS, 14220 Prague 4, Czech Republic2
Received 20 July 2005/ Accepted 4 November 2005
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In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, large raft-based membrane microdomains or, more likely, raft clusters can be visualized in living cells (27). As judged from detergent solubilities and from the difference in the membrane patterns, two raft-based membrane compartments (RMCs) can be distinguished. One (RMC P) is occupied by the proton ATPase Pma1p (2, 22, 27), and the other (RMC C) is known to contain the two H+ symporters Can1p and Fur4p and a membrane protein of unknown function, Sur7p (26, 27, 55). The two compartments (RMC P and RMC C) have been estimated to cover about 80% of the cell surface of yeast cells (26), which implies that many more proteins are expected to be associated with each of them.
For plant cells, the occurrence of rafts has not been firmly established; so far, solely the existence of mild detergent-insoluble proteins from tobacco leaf plasma membranes and Arabidopsis membranes has been reported (4, 28, 33).
For characterizations of plant membrane proteins, especially their transport functions, yeast has been an extremely helpful model organism in the past (13, 49). Once the Chlorella hexose-H+ symporter, the HUP1 protein, and the related transporter STP1 from Arabidopsis had been functionally expressed in yeast cells (40, 41), and once specific yeast mutants were complemented with corresponding plant genes coding for transporters and ion channels (37, 43, 45), these methods became standard procedures, leading to the detection and characterization of hundreds of plant transporters (13, 49). It is not implausible, therefore, to look for a potential raft association of plant membrane proteins with the help of yeast cells.
For this study, we used HUP1, the first eukaryotic H+ symporter to be described and cloned (19, 42), as a model protein. The HUP1 protein is a member of the major facilitator superfamily of transport proteins with 12 putative transmembrane helices and most likely is active as a monomer. We constructed a HUP1-green fluorescent protein (HUP1-GFP) fusion and expressed it in S. cerevisiae. As observed by confocal microscopy, the protein clearly exhibited a patchy distribution in the plasma membrane and colocalized with the endogenous yeast raft proteins constituting RMC C. Lipid analysis of HUP1p purified to homogeneity from yeast membranes revealed that the protein is specifically associated with ergosterol, phosphatidylethanolamine, and phosphatidylcholine (PC) (38). In yeast mutants deficient in ergosterol biosynthesis, HUP1-GFP is distributed homogenously in the plasma membrane. In addition, we demonstrate that HUP1-GFP expressed in Schizosaccharomyces pombe concentrates in the sterol-rich end zones of this fission yeast. With the use of an anti-HUP1 protein antibody, a patchy distribution of the transporter can also be seen in Chlorella cross sections. The data can be taken as evidence that at least this plant protein associates and concentrates within lipid raft-based membrane compartments.
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. The bacterial strains were incubated in 2TY medium (1% tryptone, 1.6% yeast extract, 0.5% NaCl) supplemented with ampicillin (100 mg/ml) for the selection of transformants. Yeast wild-type strains were grown in rich medium (for S. cerevisiae, YPD [2% peptone, 1% yeast extract, 2% glucose]; for S. pombe, YE [1% yeast extract, 3% glucose]), while transformants were selected in yeast minimal medium (0.67% Difco yeast nitrogen base without amino acids, 2% glucose, and essential amino acids). pVT100-U and YEplac181 transformants were selected on uracil- and leucine-free media, respectively. For construction of the hxt1-7
erg6
strain, genomic DNA of the erg6 mutant was used as a template for PCR to amplify the erg6
::kanMX4 open reading frame. Therefore, primers were used which anneal from 198 bp to 224 bp upstream and 178 bp to 205 bp downstream of the ERG6 open reading frame. The PCR product was directly transformed into hxt1-7
cells (36). |
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TABLE 1. Yeast strains used for this study
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Plasmids. (i) pVT100-U HUP1GFP. The HUP1 cDNA was amplified by PCR from plasmid pTF201 (41), using a 5' primer containing a HindIII restriction site and a 3' primer containing a BamHI site. The PCR product was subcloned into the 2µm vector pVT100-U-GFP (J. Stolz, unpublished). In this vector, the gene encodes HUP1 C-terminally fused to GFP and is under the control of a constitutive ADH1 promoter.
(ii) YEplac181 HUP1GFP. The HUP1-GFP DNA was cut from pVT100-U HUP1GFP, including its ADH1 promoter and terminator, as SphI-HindIII and HindIII-MfeI fragments. In a three-way ligation, these fragments were subcloned into the 2µm vector YEplac181 cut with SphI and EcoRI.
Isolation of lipid rafts. For the isolation of lipid rafts according to the methods of Bagnat et al. (2) and Malinska et al. (27), crude membranes corresponding to 200 µg protein were incubated in 300 µl cold TNE buffer (50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.4, 150 mM NaCl, 5 mM EDTA) containing protease inhibitors (Roche Diagnostics GmbH, Mannheim, Germany) and 1% Triton X-100 for 30 min on ice. Subsequently, the samples were overlaid with an Optiprep (Nycomed) step gradient and centrifuged for 3 h at 45,000 rpm in a Beckman SW60 rotor at 4°C. After centrifugation, six equal fractions were collected, and the proteins were immunodetected.
Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblot analysis. Protein fractions from the density gradient were incubated with sample buffer at 37°C for 10 min, loaded into a 10% polyacrylamide gel, and finally blotted onto a polyvinylidene difluoride membrane. For immunodetection of HUP1-GFP, Pma1p, Gas1p, and Hxt1p, the membrane was incubated with rabbit polyclonal antibodies. The detection of primary antibodies was carried out using a peroxidase-conjugated immunoglobulin G anti-rabbit antibody and a chemiluminescence detection system (Pierce Biotechnology Inc., Rockford, IL).
Lipid analysis. Lipids from the top and bottom fractions of the Optiprep gradient were extracted with 3 ml of chloroform-methanol (2:1). After centrifugation, the lower, organic phase was washed with 10% methanol, and the lipid-containing chloroform phase was evaporated by a stream of nitrogen. The dried lipids were dissolved in 8 µl toluene and separated by one-dimensional high-performance thin-layer chromatography with five stepwise developments, as described by Ruiz and Ochoa (39). Pure lipids dissolved in toluene were spotted onto thin-layer chromatography plates and served as standards. The lipids were detected by charring.
Filipin staining of sterols in S. pombe cells. Wild-type cells were grown in rich medium and prepared for microscopy during early logarithmic growth phase. Just before concentration of the cells by a brief centrifugation, filipin (Sigma) dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide was added at a final concentration of 5 µg/ml.
Transport assay. For testing of glucose uptake, yeast cells were grown on minimal medium supplemented with the required amino acids and 2% maltose as a carbon source. The cells from mid-exponential growth phase were collected, washed three times in 50 mM potassium phosphate buffer, pH 6.3, and resuspended in the same buffer to a final optical density of 1.0. A mixture of radioactive and nonradioactive glucose (specific activity, 2.5 µCi/µmole) was added to aliquots of 0.33 ml of the yeast suspension to a final concentration of 75 µM. Samples of 100 µl were withdrawn at intervals, diluted in 2 ml of water, filtered with 0.8-µm-pore-size cellulose-acetate filters (Schleicher & Schuell), and washed with 2 ml of water. The radioactivity was determined by scintillation counting.
Isolation of membranes from Chlorella cells. Cells were harvested, resuspended in TNE buffer containing protease inhibitors, and homogenized with glass beads in a ribolyser. The homogenate was subjected to differential centrifugation at 20,000 x g for 30 min and subsequently at 100,000 x g for 1 h (microsomes). The microsomal pellet was resuspended in TNE buffer and used for the isolation of DRMs.
Light microscopy. Chlorella cells induced for glucose uptake were washed and pelleted; they were then fixed, further treated, and antibody stained as described previously (48). Fixation was carried out with 0.1% glutaraldehyde and 6% formaldehyde; the cell pellets were dehydrated with increasing concentrations of ethanol and embedded in methacrylate. Two-micrometer ultrathin microtome sections were stained with an anti-HUP1 antibody.
Yeast cells were concentrated for microscopy by a short centrifugation step. Immobilization of the cells was achieved with 1% agarose. Microscopy of specimens was carried out with an LSM 510 META confocal microscope (Carl Zeiss, Jena, Germany). Fluorescence signals of GFP (excitation at 488 nm, Ar laser) were detected using a 505- to 550-nm-band-pass emission filter; for monomeric red fluorescent protein (mRFP) signals (excitation at 543 nm, HeNe laser), a 585-nm-long-pass emission filter was used. In cases of double labeling, the specimens were scanned sequentially to avoid any cross talk of fluorescence channels.
For visualization of filipin-stained cells, a Zeiss Axioskop equipped with an HBO 50 Hg lamp and a 3CCD color video camera (Sony) was used. Filipin was detected with the following equipment: a UV-G365 filter, an FT395 dichroic mirror, and an LP420 emission light filter.
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FIG. 1. Cross sections of Chlorella kessleri cells stained with anti-HUP1 antibody (for details, see Materials and Methods).
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FIG. 7. Ergosterol is required for optimal glucose uptake and growth of S. cerevisiae hxt1-7 mutants. (A) The S. cerevisiae mutant lacking seven hexose facilitator genes (36) grows on maltose (left) and can grow on glucose only when transformed with the gene for Chlorella HUP1-GFP (right). Optimal growth also requires an intact ERG6 gene (compare rows 3 and 4). The individual strains were grown in SD medium, diluted in water, and spotted in dilution steps of 10 on plates containing either 2% maltose or 2% glucose. (B) HUP1-GFP is expressed in untransformed cells or in erg6 mutant cells of the hxt1-7 strain. In both types of cells, the HUP1-GFP is targeted to the plasma membrane; 300-nm clusters are not formed in the erg6 mutant cells. (C) Rates of glucose uptake in the absence of ERG6 were considerably decreased.
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FIG. 2. Saccharomyces cerevisiae (SEY6210/pHUP1GFP) expressing the Chlorella glucose-H+ symporter HUP1-GFP. The top row of images shows a confocal surface view (A), a cross section (B), and a differential interference contrast (DIC) image (C). The S. cerevisiae membrane protein Sur7-mRFP localizes to 300-nm patches of the raft-based membrane compartment C (RMC C) (26). The second row of images shows a confocal surface view (D), a cross section (E), and a DIC image (F). HUP1-GFP colocalizes with Sur7-mRFP (G and H). Confocal surface views in panel G are as follows: left, HUP1-GFP; middle, Sur7-mRFP; and right, merge. (H) Fluorescence intensity profile of patches scanned as indicated in the merged image. HUP1-GFP does not colocalize with Pma1-dsRed (I and J). Confocal surface views in panel I are as follows: left, HUP1-GFP; middle, Pma-dsRed; right, merge. (J) Fluorescence intensity profile of a cell coexpressing HUP1-GFP and Pma1-dsRed. HUP1-GFP is concentrated in areas where H+-ATPase is minimal.
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FIG. 3. Properties of detergent-resistant membranes. (A) Yeast membranes containing HUP1-GFP were solubilized with Triton X-100, and the membrane proteins were separated in a density gradient (see Materials and Methods). The top fraction (floating proteins and rafts) and the bottom fraction (soluble proteins not associated with lipids) were immunoanalyzed as described in Materials and Methods. Besides HUP1, Pma1p, Gas1p, and Hxt1p (panels 1 to 3 and 7), HUP1-containing membranes of three mutants (panels 4 to 6) and of Chlorella cells (panel 8) were tested. (B) Lipids from the top and bottom fractions were extracted and analyzed by thin-layer chromatography (Erg, ergosterol; PE, phosphatidylethanolamine; PC, phosphatidylcholine). (C) HUP1-GFP was extracted from membranes of wild-type and erg mutant cells with Triton X-100. Membranes were extracted with the indicated concentrations of Triton X-100, followed by high-speed centrifugation. The amount of HUP1 protein that remained associated with the membrane pellet was analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.
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Requirement of ergosterol and sphingolipids for the formation of raft-based clusters. Yeast membrane proteins such as Pma1p and Can1p require the presence of ergosterol and sphingolipids within the plasma membrane to behave as raft proteins (2, 27). To see whether the lateral membrane distribution of the heterologous protein HUP1 was affected in mutants lacking ergosterol or sphingolipids, the corresponding mutant strains were transformed with the HUP1-GFP-encoding plasmid. As shown in Fig. 4A and B, targeting of the protein to the plasma membrane in the erg6 mutant was hardly affected, but the protein was almost homogenously distributed and not concentrated in the typical 300-nm patches. Similar pictures were obtained with the erg24 mutant (data not shown) and the lcb1-100 mutant (Fig. 4C and D). Thus, the formation of raft-based membrane compartments responsible for the patchy pattern obviously requires both ergosterol and sphingolipids. Testing the detergent solubility of the HUP1 protein expressed in erg mutants and its separation by density gradient centrifugation showed, however, that there was no significant change in the top-to-bottom distribution of the protein (Fig. 3A, panels 5 to 7). By this criterion, the HUP1 proteins in erg6 and erg24 mutants still had raft properties, although the formation of the 300-nm patches was greatly suppressed (Fig. 4A and B). Therefore, it has to be assumed that the patches represent raft clusters. The ergosterol biosynthetic intermediates lanosterol and zymosterol, which accumulate in erg24 and erg6 mutants, respectively (Fig. 5) (14, 32), obviously enable the yeast cell to form raftsmost likely with the typical dimensions known for mammalian cells (35)but they no longer allow raft clustering. To characterize the raft association of the HUP1 protein in more detail, we used the method of protein extraction by increasing the concentration of Triton X-100 at 20°C (10). The HUP1 protein from wild-type membranes treated with 0.75% detergent was still insoluble, whereas 0.3 to 0.4% Triton X-100 was sufficient to solubilize HUP1 completely from the membranes of the erg mutants (Fig. 3C).
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FIG. 4. HUP1-GFP expressed in ergosterol erg6 mutant (A and B) and sphingolipid biosynthesis lcb1-100 mutant (C and D). Confocal cross sections (A and C) and surface views (B and D) are shown. Controls corresponding to the wild type are shown in Fig. 2A and B. Size bar, 5µm.
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FIG. 5. Pathway of ergosterol biosynthesis in S. cerevisiae. Only the erg7 mutation, blocking the conversion of squalene epoxide via ring closures to lanosterol, is lethal.
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FIG. 6. HUP1-GFP expressed in Schizosaccharomyces pombe (FY254/pHUP1-GFP). Sterol-rich membrane domains were visualized with filipin (A; fluorescence microscope, UV light) and HUP1-GFP localization (B; confocal microscope). Size bars, 10 µm.
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mutant (36). The hxt1-7
and hxt1-7
erg6
mutants were transformed with a plasmid encoding the HUP1-GFP fusion and grown on maltose. As documented in Fig. 7A, the HUP1-GFP protein enabled growth on glucose, but only very poorly in the erg6 mutant background. To analyze the poor growth of erg6 mutants expressing HUP1 in more detail, we performed uptake experiments with [14C]glucose. As shown in Fig. 7C, the initial rate of [14C]glucose uptake into erg6 mutant cells also amounted to only about 20% that of ERG6-carrying cells. In both types of cells, the targeting of HUP1-GFP to the plasma membrane was not affected. No internal fluorescence is visible in either confocal cross section (Fig. 7B). The amounts of HUP1 protein expressed differed at most by a factor of 2, as estimated from the fluorescence intensities (Fig. 7B; also compare Fig. 2 and 4) and from Western blots (data not shown). Thus, we postulate that localization within the raft clusters significantly increases the catalytic activity of this transporter.
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The raft concept has raised enormous attention, and many publications have related lipid rafts to various biological functions, such as signaling, cell adhesion, and docking of pathogens (for reviews see references 5, 12, and 59). The most convincing examples concerning raft functions have been reported for hematopoietic cells. For example, in T-cell signaling, tyrosine phosphorylation of the LAT protein (linker for activation of T cells) is essential. If a palmitoylation site of the LAT protein is mutated, the nonpalmitoylated protein still localizes to the plasma membrane but not to DRMs. As a consequence, this protein is not tyrosine phosphorylated and does not function in signaling anymore (24, 57). In general, the function of rafts is thought to be brought about in any of the following three ways: (i) an increased concentration of proteins in rafts could facilitate homomeric and heteromeric interactions, (ii) the lateral compartmentation of the plasma membrane might separate signaling components until a signal allows them to come together, or (iii) the different lipid environment as such may affect the functions of membrane proteins. Activities of many membrane proteins are affected specifically by phospholipids and sterols (for a review, see reference 31).
In comparison with the intense interest in rafts of mammalian and yeast cells, surprisingly little attention has been paid to potential lipid rafts of plant membranes. Although the typical plant sterols sitosterol and stigmasterol promote raft domain formation in model membranes (54), evidence for the existence of such domains in biological membranes of plants is still scarce. Tobacco leaves and Arabidopsis callus tissue represent the only plant tissues for which the existence of detergent-resistant membranes has been reported (4, 28, 33). Based on their occurrence in low-buoyant-density fractions after mild detergent treatment and centrifugation, a number of glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored proteins associated with DRMs have been identified. Whether the detergent insolubility and density gradient data reflect the true organization of lipids in living cells or whether rafts and their association with defined proteins arise as an artifact during detergent extraction is, however, still under debate (16). Agreement exists only in stating that detergent resistance as a sole criterion for raft association may be insufficient (59).
The visualization of rafts or raft-based clusters in living cells of S. cerevisiae and S. pombe (3, 27, 52) represents an additional phenomenon indicating the existence of rafts, at least for fungal cells. Valdez-Taubas and Pelham (51) argue that the raft-like domains in polarized fungal cells arise simply due to polarized exocytosis and slow lateral diffusion. However, raft-based membrane compartmentation documented by patchy, nonpolarized distributions of membrane proteins is shown here and has been reported previously for vegetatively growing S. cerevisiae cells (27).
The nonhomogenous distribution of the HUP1 symporter protein detected by specific antibodies at the Chlorella cell surface resembled the 300-nm patches of Can1-GFP, Fur4-GFP, and Sur7-GFP observed in S. cerevisiae. Since yeast has turned out to be an ideal host for the functional expression of plant transporters (41, 42; for review, see references 13 and 49), we expected that these heterologous membrane proteins might become compartmentalized within the fungal plasma membrane. Assuming that the membrane patches visible in Chlorella are raft-type subdomains, and with respect to the fact that the HUP1 protein does show detergent resistance when extracted from Chlorella membranes (Fig. 3A, panel 8), we checked whether HUP1-GFP joins one of the raft compartments detected in the plasma membrane of S. cerevisiae (26).
As shown in Fig. 2, HUP1-GFP colocalizes with Sur7-mRFP (Fig. 2G and H). This demonstrates that the Chlorella symporter localizes in yeast subdomain RMC C, which also houses Can1p, Fur4p, and Sur7p. It is notable that, in contrast to Sur1-mRFP, HUP1-GFP is also present to a minor extent in the non-raft-cluster area, which possibly indicates that the heterologous protein does not carry the optimal sorting information required for yeast raft or raft cluster association. This conclusion is derived from the overall background of HUP1-GFP in the nonraft area, which is higher than that of Sur7-mRFP (Fig. 2G and H). Also, less Can1-GFP is present outside the 300-nm patches (27). As a member of the raft cluster compartment RMC C, the hexose-H+ symporter of Chlorella is distinctly separated from the H+-ATPase of RMC P (Fig. 2G). This clear separation of a membrane area responsible for the current generated by proton export from an area occupied by proton importers (Can1p, Fur4p, and HUP1) may be of functional relevance. The alkaline and acid banding of Chara described by Lucas and Smith (25) may thus be a much more general phenomenon and valid even at a nanoscale. This and other functional aspects of the subcompartmentation of transport proteins in the plasma membrane will obviously be the most interesting aspects to be worked on in the future.
The results indicate that sterols are important for the activity of the HUP1 protein (Fig. 7). Whether the clustering of the transporter within the membrane or the presence of a critical amount of a specific sterol is decisive for the effect observed is still an open question. The possibility that ergosterol is a more potent cofactor for the activity of the HUP1 protein than zymosterol (Fig. 5) cannot be excluded. These two possibilities, however, may simply represent two sides of the same coin.
In the raft field, a committed discussion is taking place regarding whether it is primarily a lipid-phase separation that drives raft formation with the raft proteins subsequently concentrating in their favorite lipid phases. Alternatively, membrane proteins with specific lipid shells may initiate the formation of smaller and larger rafts depending on the extent of fusion of these protein-lipid units (59). The expression of HUP1-GFP in S. pombe cells characterized by a specific pattern of sterol-rich plasma membrane domains (Fig. 6) clearly shows that the heterologous protein joins the sterol-rich zones of the host organism. At first sight, this seems to support the idea of lipid-phase separation as the primary cause of raft formation. It has to be realized, however, that these large raft-based membrane domains in S. pombe contain various endogenous membrane proteins and that heterologous HUP1-GFP most likely simply joins these rafts, independent of the mechanism by which they arose.
Additional evidence for the raft association of HUP1-GFP was obtained by detergent extraction and by studies of mutants with defects in sterol and ceramide synthesis. HUP1-GFP behaves to a large extent as a detergent-resistant membrane protein; 70 to 80% of the total HUP1 protein was found in thetop fraction of the density gradient (Fig. 3A, panel 1). The S. cerevisiae erg6 and erg24 mutants are unable to synthesize ergosterol, the main sterol, which amounts to >50% of the lipid components of the plasma membrane (58). In contrast to the case in wild-type cells, the fluorescence pattern of HUP1-GFP expression was quite homogenous in both mutants, and the same was observed for the lcb1-100 mutant (Fig. 4C and D), which contains only 4% of the wild-type content of sphingolipids at the nonpermissive temperature (56). Further support for the postulated raft association of HUP1 is given by the fact that the purified protein is associated with lipids that are typical for rafts. A biotinylation domain-tagged HUP1 protein purified by affinity chromatography to the extent that only a single band could be seen on a silver-stained sodium dodecyl sulfate gel (8) contained approximately three molecules of ergosterol per protein molecule (38). The fact that sterols represent the major component of lipids specifically associated with the protein not only supports a raft association of HUP1 protein but also strengthens the old observation that interference of sterols by nystatin changes the kinetic behavior of the Chlorella HUP1 transport protein in vivo and in vitro (18, 30).
A frequently applied procedure for testing whether biological phenomena are related to the existence of rafts in mammalian cells is a manipulation of the sterol content in membranes. Reduction of the sterol content can be achieved either by interfering with sterol biosynthesis (lovostatin) or by extracting the sterols from intact cells with methyl-ß-cyclodextrin (34). However, possible pitfalls such as changes in membrane permeability or in the membrane's Nernst potential due to a decreased cholesterol content are generally neglected, and the functions of lipid rafts may therefore be considerably overrated (12, 29). The same skepticism may hold when considering the decreased transport activities in the erg mutants observed in this study.
Only recently, several studies have dealt with mutants defective in sterol biosynthesis in Arabidopsis (7, 9, 44, 53). The phenotypes also showed severe developmental defects in mutants where the sitosterol branch of the pathway (and not the campesterol/brassinolide one) was inhibited (7). The tendency to discuss these results and related ones (20, 21) in connection with a potential role of lipid rafts urgently demands more evidence of their existence in plants. The facts presented here demonstrate that a plasma membrane protein of the lower plant Chlorella possesses all the crucial features for localizing in rafts. The approach described may be a generally applicable and convenient method to learn about lipid requirements and potential raft properties of other plant plasma membrane proteins.
Size bar, 5µm.
The financial support of DFG (Schwerpunkt 1108) and of Fonds der Chemischen Industrie is acknowledged. M. Opekarova was supported by LC545 funds.
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