Talk:Biological membrane

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	MCB Portal This article is within the scope of the Molecular and Cellular Biology WikiProject. To participate, visit the WikiProject for more information. The current monthly improvement drive is Signal transduction.
Stub	This article has been rated as stub-Class on the assessment scale.
Top	This article is on a subject of top-importance within molecular and cellular biology.
	This article has been marked as requiring immediate attention.
Article Grading: The following comments were left by the quality and importance raters: (edit · refresh) rated top as high school/SAT biology content, overview topic - tameeria 17:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC) This article needs more content, especially the fluid mosaic model which currently redirects to cell membrane. - tameeria 17:43, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cell membrane or Biological membranes entry?

I think this entry title is a sensible place to put all the generalities about biological membranes, but right now the cell membrane entry is a lot richer in generalities, which creates the problem that a person seeking to learn about membranes in general would learn more by going to the entry on cell membranes in particular, which he or she will be unlikely to think to do. Thing is, I like having all the generalities in the cell membrane entry (many of which I put there myself). I'm not sure it's justified, but I bet nearly all of the membrane in a cell either belongs to the cell membrane or is continuous with it (e.g. endoplasmic reticulum); so in that sense the cell membrane tops the hierarchy and seems a natural roof under which to shovel stuff. I don't know the best way out of this rut. Incidentally, after I had put a lot of description into the cell membrane entry, I went around and substituted that entry as a link in other biology entries that until then had linked to membrane, which at the time was brief and not specific to biological membranes.

A lot of generalities might apply equally well to, say, the cis-golgi, which is not connected to the cell membrane... I think your initial suggestion that generalities should go here in biological membrane. Graft

At first, I didn't see the purpose in having two separate entries for membranes, but I guess the cell membrane article is really just for the outer cellular membrane. Perhaps this page should be merged with lipid bilayer... I mean, aren't all so called biological membranes predominantly (phospho)lipid bilayers?

Biological membranes are much more complex than simple lipid bilayers, both in their composition and in the interaction with their environment. Perhaps lipid bilayer should be merged to this page. However, it would probably be most sensible to merge lipid bilayer, micelle and vesicle to "lipid bilayer" and leave this page (biological membrane) on its own. --Eleassar777 14:42, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a vital component of the bilayer, with important effects on permeability to various substances and on the phase-transition temperature of the membrane (c.f. impurities causing depression of freezing point). It needs to be specifically mentioned in the opening paragraph because, chemically speaking, it is neither a phospholipid, nor a protein.

Its derivatives (steroid hormones) are similarly miscible in the bilayer but, being 'functional' rather than 'structural', perhaps these should not be mentioned here, to avoid confusion and leave that fact to the individual articles on each of these substances?

I will refrain from making an edit myself, as I don't have anything to cite, at the moment. EatYerGreens 23:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)