Biomembranes

Recommended Prerequisites

Biochemsitry I, Biochemistry Laboratories I and Biochemistry Laboratories II.

Teaching Methods

The teorethical concepts are mainly introduced by the use of experimental data obtaines by different techniques, allowing different perspectives of the same problem. The students are chalenged to interpret the results and extract from them the foundations for the support of the concepts in view. For a better class experience, the experimental data (tracings, tables, charts) from various bibliographical sources are available previously, in electronic form.

Learning Outcomes

The aim of this course (centered on the role of biomembranes as a key element of cell architecture, and as intermediate between the cell and the environment) is to acquire knowledge and relevant competences for a critical interpretation of the physiological and pathological phenomena at the cell level. The students will have the chance to collect, organize and interpret experimental data, that will allow them to acquire fundamental teorethical concepts that will help them:
a) to recognize the relationship among architecture, physico-chemical properties, and functions of the cell membrane;
b) to analyse and explain membrane changes (physical and chemical) induced by xenobiotics or in adaptative response to environmental pressure;
c) to justify pharmacological action strategies that target the membrane;
d) to propose experimental procedures tha suit the study of the membrane, in terms of composition, structural organization of its components and physical and functional properties.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Chemical composition of biomembranes, correlation with structur and function.

Moecular basis of lipid mesomorphism, dependency of physico.chemical factors. Liquid-cristaline properties of biomembranes and molecular dynamicsof membrane components, phase transitions and phase lateral separation .

Lipiud-protein interactions; fluidity; the hydrophobic mismatchbetween lipids and proteins; the characteristic curvature and the dynamic heterogeneity of the membrane as modulating factors for membrane function.

Assimetry and lateral heterogenety in biomembranes; role of cholesterol in the formation of lipid domains in the membrane  and functional consequences. The lipid rafts in the sorting of membrane lipids and proteins in eukaryotic celss, in cell signalling, and in some pathologies.

The biomembranes as tagets of disease, aging and toxic action of xenobiotics.

Molecular mechanisms of adaptation of the  cell membrane under envionmental pressure.

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Laboratory work or Field work: 15.0%
Other: 35.0%
Exam: 50.0%

Bibliography

1. The Structure of Biological Membranes, Yeagle, P., CRC Press, London, 2nd ed., 2005

2. Lipid Polymorphism and Membrane Properties, Current Topics in Membranes, Vol. 44, Epand, R.M. ed., Academic Press Inc., San Diego, 1997

3. Membrane Microdomain Signaling, Lipid Rafts in Biology and Medicine, Mattson,

M.P. ed., Humana Press, N.J., 2005

4. Life - as a Matter of Fat; the Emerging Science of Lipidomics, Mouritsen, O.G., Springer-Verlag, N.Y., 2005.