ISBN-13: 9781603273596 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 580 str.
ISBN-13: 9781603273596 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 580 str.
Efforts to describe and model the molecular structure of biological membranes go back to the beginning of the last century. In 1917, Langmuir described membranes as a layer of lipids one molecule thick 1]. Eight years later, Gorter and Grendel concluded from their studies that "the phospholipid molecules that formed the cell membrane were arranged in two layers to form a lipid bilayer" 2]. Danielli and Robertson proposed, in 1935, a model in which the bilayer of lipids is sequestered between two monolayers of unfolded proteins 3], and the currently still accepted fuid mosaic model was proposed by Singer and Nicolson in 1972 4]. Among those landmarks of biomembrane history, a serendipitous observation made by Alex Bangham during the early 1960s deserves undoubtedly a special place. His fnding that exposure of dry phospholipids to an excess of water gives rise to lamellar structures 5] has opened versatile experimental access to studying the biophysics and biochemistry of biological phospholipid membranes. Although during the following 4 decades biological membrane models have grown in complexity and functionality 6], liposomes are, besides supported bilayers, membrane nanodiscs, and hybrid membranes, still an indisputably important tool for membrane b- physicists and biochemists. In vol. II of this book, the reader will fnd detailed methods for the use of liposomes in studying a variety of biochemical and biophysical membrane phenomena concomitant with chapters describing a great palette of state-of-the-art analytical technologies.