Trends in Plant Science
Volume 15, Issue 12, December 2010, Pages 656-663
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Review
Membrane rafts in plant cells

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2010.09.003Get rights and content

Over the past five years, the structure, composition and possible functions of membrane raft-like domains on plant plasma membranes (PM) have been described. Proteomic analyses have indicated that a high proportion of proteins associated with detergent-insoluble membranes (DIMs), supposed to contain raft-like domains isolated from the PM, might be involved in signalling pathways. Recently, the dynamic association of specific proteins with the DIM fraction upon environmental stress has been reported. Innovative imaging methods have shown that lateral segregation of lipids and proteins exists at the nanoscale level in the plant PM, correlating detergent insolubility and membrane-domain localization of presumptive raft proteins. These data suggest a role for plant rafts as signal transduction platforms, similar to those documented for mammalian cells.

Section snippets

Plasma membrane heterogeneity: the membrane raft concept

Biological membranes, particularly the plasma membrane (PM), are no longer considered as bilayers composed of homogenously distributed lipids and proteins. Instead, research carried out by biologists, biophysicists, and biochemists has revealed over the past 15 years the existence within the PM of particular domains (rafts) that exhibit a specific molecular composition. These domains are enriched in sterol and sphingolipids, and depleted in unsaturated phospholipids. Self-associating properties

Detergent insolubility of plant membranes: facts and artefacts

The highly compact structure of the Lo phase prevents the incorporation of detergent molecules, thus making membrane rafts more resistant to non-ionic detergent treatment than the fluid non-raft membrane surrounding them. A marked correlation can be observed between the detergent solubilisation of a cell membrane monitored by confocal microscopy of raft marker proteins and that of supported lipid bilayers imaged by atomic force microscopy [8]. Because of this property, the studies of membrane

Insights into membrane domain organization

It is clear from studies on animal cells that the principles of lipid self-association of sterols and sphingolipids can confer organization beyond non-specific fluidity [33]. The extraction of free sterols from isolated tobacco PM using MCD increases lipid acyl chain disorder and reduces the overall liquid-phase heterogeneity, which correlates with the disruption of phytosterol-rich domains [34]. Furthermore, MCD treatment also prevents isolation of DIMs. These results point to a role of

From DIMs to membrane rafts

Besides isolating DIMs and demonstrating with model membranes that particular species of lipids are able to form distinct phases within the membrane, a crucial objective for researchers has been to develop a way of visualizing membrane rafts in situ and to characterize the lateral heterogeneity of the plant PM.

Modelling studies are consistent with the idea that rafts are 10–100 nm in diameter 36, 37, progressively shifting from a microdomain to a nanodomain model. This estimated size, far below

Membrane rafts in plant physiology

There is strong evidence for the involvement of sterol-enriched membrane domains in plant physiology. Because of space constraints, we will only focus on cell polarity and signal transduction in this review. For reviews of aspects of cell trafficking and raft formation along the secretory pathway, see 23, 56. The first set of data concerns growth and development. The polarized transport of the plant hormone auxin depends on AUX1/LAX, PGP and PIN protein families that mediate auxin transport

Conclusions and future perspectives

The existence of a lateral heterogeneity of the distribution of lipids and proteins on the plant PM has been established the last few years. The role of sterols in the maintenance of part of this heterogeneity and its variations in response to environmental constraints has also been evidenced. However, much research remains to be done to understand in more detail what covers this heterogeneity (i.e. are there different types of domains; how many domains; how to characterize them according to

Acknowledgements

We thank Andy Maule, Christophe Ritzenthaler and Vivienne Gianinazzi-Pearson for critical reading of the manuscript, and Elodie Noirot and Alain Glowczack for help with figure design. We acknowledge the French ‘Agence Nationale pour la Recherche’ (ANR) for financial support (contracts NT09_517917 PANACEA to S.M. and F.S-P). We apologize to all those colleagues whose work was not cited because of space restriction.

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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