Significance of lipids in biological membranes:

Lipids play a vital structural and functional role in biological membranes. Before we study their
importance we should know about the biological membranes.
What are Biological Membranes?
Biological membranes are present inn living organisms and they act as a selectively permeable
barrier allowing few molecules to pass through while hindering the flow of others e.g. the plasma
membranes that surround the eukaryotic cell.
Plasma membrane:
It is present outside the animal cell and beneath the cell wall in plant cell and act as a semi
permeable barrier allowing only selective molecules to pass through.
Selective permeability of plasma membrane:
Probably the most important feature of a biomembrane is that it is a selectively permeable
structure. This means that the size, charge, and other chemical properties of the atoms and
molecules attempting to cross it will determine whether they succeed in doing so.
Structure:
The structure of membrane is described by the fluid mosaic model. It was first proposed
by S.J. Singer and Garth L. Nicolson in 1972 to explain the structure of the plasma membrane.

Composition of plasma membrane:

Phospholipids:
It forms a phospholipid bilayer and is the main fabric of membrane.
Cholestrol:
 It is present on and in between the phospholipid bilayer
Integral Proteins:
They are embedded within the phospholipid bilayer.
Peripheral proteins:
They are present on the inner or outer surface of bilayer.
Carbohydrate:
They are attached to the proteins on lipid bilayer.

Significance of lipids in biological membrane:

Biological membranes are fluid (liquid–crystalline) lipid bilayers, into which, proteins can insert
or associate at the surface.
Phospholipid bilayer is the main part of a biological membrane which gives it the structure and
also maintains the fluidity of cell. A typical phospholipid bilayer is as follows:
The biological membranes are made up of lipids which have:
1. hydrophobic tail:

The hydrophobic tails are hydrocarbon tails whose length and saturation is important in
characterizing the cell.
The tail (composed of the fatty acids) has no charge.
2. hydrophilic heads:

The main fabric of the membrane is composed of amphiphilic or dual-loving,

phospholipid molecules. The hydrophilic or water-loving areas of these molecules are in
contact with the aqueous fluid both inside and outside the cell.
The head (the phosphate-containing group) has a polar character or negative charge.
Lipid rafts occur when lipid species and proteins aggregate in domains in the membrane. These
help organize membrane components into localized areas that are involved in specific processes,
such as signal transduction.
The typical structure of a phospholipid is as follows: