BIO 1140 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Prenylation, Channel Tunnel, Cell Membrane

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Biology
• Course: BIO 1140
• Professor: Caroline Petit- Turcotte

Document Summary

Both layers are different because they interact with different environments different functions interior vs exterior: cellular recognition outer layer, interactions with cytoskeleton inner layer. Different changes influence how fluid the membrane is: temperature, chain length, saturation, polarity. Higher temperature = higher excitement, more movement and more fluid. Lower temperature = less excitement, less vibrations, more interactions between fatty acid tails, more compacted, less fluidity. Unsaturated bonds = kinks/changes in the structure/influences how tightly packed the fatty acids are: think in areas and not overall membrane. Cholesterol fills in the space in between the phospholipids changes how tightly packed the phospholipids are: cholesterol also influenced by temperature; maintain fluidity at both extreme. Polarity affects fluidity different types of phospholipids along the membrane: four main types of phospholipids with different functional groups different polarities, polarities of the phospholipids influences how fluid the membranes are at those points. The membrane adapts to the environment to maintain membrane fluidity.