From biological membranes to biomimetic model membranes

Abstract

Biological membranes play an essential role in the cellular protection as well as in the control and the transport of nutrients. Many mechanisms such as molecular recognition, enzymatic catalysis, cellular adhesion and membrane fusion take place into the biological membranes. In 1972, Singer et al. provided a membrane model, called fluid mosaic model, in which each leaflet of the bilayer is formed by a homogeneous environment of lipids in a fluid state including globular assembling of proteins and glycoproteins. Since its conception in 1972, many developments were brought to this model in terms of composition and molecular organization. The main development of the fluid mosaic model was made by Simons et al. (1997) and Brown et al. (1997) who suggested that membrane lipids are organized into lateral microdomains (or lipid rafts) with a specific composition and a molecular dynamic that are different to the composition and the dynamic of the surrounding liquid crystalline phase. The discovery of a phase separation in the plane of the membrane has induced an explosion in the research efforts related to the biology of cell membranes but also in the development of new technologies for the study of these biological systems. Due to the high complexity of biological membranes and in order to investigate the biological processes that occur on the membrane surface or within the membrane lipid bilayer, a large number of studies are performed using biomimicking model membranes. This paper aims at revisiting the fundamental properties of biological membranes in terms of membrane composition, membrane dynamic and molecular organization, as well as at describing the most common biomimicking models that are frequently used for investigating biological processes such as membrane fusion, membrane trafficking, pore formation as well as membrane interactions at a molecular level.