In vivo plasma membrane organization: results of biophysical approaches

In the last two decades, various biophysical techniques have been used to investigate the organization of the plasma membrane in live cells. This review describes some of the most important experimental findings and summarizes the characteristics and limitations of a few frequently used biophysical techniques. In addition, the current knowledge about three membrane organizational elements: the membrane-associated cytoskeleton, caveolae and lipid microdomains, is described in detail. Unresolved issues, experimental contradictions and future directions to integrate the variety of experimental data into a revised model of the plasma membrane of eukaryotic cells are discussed in the last section. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.