A group of researchers led by Michio Murata (Professor at the Graduate School of Science, Osaka University), and Mikiko Sodeoka (Director, Synthetic Organic Chemistry Laboratory, RIKEN) observed the distribution of membrane lipid in artificial monolayer by the introduction small tag, alkyne, to the target lipid. The lipid was considered to be uniform distribution at raft-like ordered domain, but it was heterogeneous. Their developed methodology of alkyne-tag Raman imaging enables to do this. These results are expected to contribute to a new analysis and an elucidation of cell membrane lipid.

A schematic illustration for a traditional lipid raft model.

(Link) http://resou.osaka-u.ac.jp/en/research/2015/20150331_1