Membrane lipids are principally of two types, phospholipids and sterols (generally cholesterol). Both types share the defining characteristic of lipids—they dissolve readily in organic solvents—but in addition they both have a region that is attracted to and soluble in water. This “amphiphilic” property (having a dual attraction; i.e., containing both a lipid-soluble and a water-soluble region) is basic to the role of lipids as building blocks of cellular membranes. Phospholipid molecules have a head (often of glycerol) to which are attached two long fatty acid chains that look much like tails. These tails are repelled by water and dissolve readily in organic solvents, giving the molecule its lipid character. To another part of the head is attached a phosphoryl group with a negative electrical charge; to this group in turn is attached another group with a positive or neutral charge. This portion of the phospholipid dissolves in water, thereby completing the molecule’s amphiphilic character. In contrast, sterols have a complex hydrocarbon ring structure as the lipid-soluble region and a hydroxyl grouping as the water-soluble region.

When dry phospholipids, or a mixture of such phospholipids and cholesterol, are immersed in water under laboratory conditions, they spontaneously form globular structures called liposomes. Investigation of the liposomes shows them to be made of concentric spheres, one sphere inside of another and each forming half of a bilayered wall. A bilayer is composed of two sheets of phospholipid molecules with all of the molecules of each sheet aligned in the same direction. In a water medium, the phospholipids of the two sheets align so that their water-repellent, lipid-soluble tails are turned and loosely bonded to the tails of the molecules on the other sheet. The water-soluble heads turn outward into the water, to which they are chemically attracted. In this way, the two sheets form a fluid, sandwichlike structure, with the fatty acid chains in the middle mingling in an organic medium while sealing out the water medium.

This type of lipid bilayer, formed by the self-assembly of lipid molecules, is the basic structure of the cell membrane. It is the most stable thermodynamic structure that a phospholipid-water mixture can take up: the fatty acid portion of each molecule dissolved in the organic phase formed by the identical regions of the other molecules and the water-attractive regions surrounded by water and facing away from the fatty acid regions. The chemical affinity of each region of the amphiphilic molecule is thus satisfied in the bilayer structure.

Membrane proteins

Membrane proteins are also of two general types. One type, called the extrinsic proteins, is loosely attached by ionic bonds or calcium bridges to the electrically charged phosphoryl surface of the bilayer. They can also attach to the second type of protein, called the intrinsic proteins. The intrinsic proteins, as their name implies, are firmly embedded within the phospholipid bilayer. Almost all intrinsic proteins contain special amino acid sequences, generally about 20- to 24-amino acids long, that extend through the internal regions of the cell membrane.

Most intrinsic and extrinsic proteins bear on their outer surfaces side chains of complex sugars, which extend into the aqueous environment around the cell. For this reason, these proteins are often referred to as glycoproteins. Some glycoproteins are involved in cell-to-cell recognition (see below The cell matrix and cell-to-cell communication).

Membrane fluidity

One of the triumphs of cell biology during the decade from 1965 to 1975 was the recognition of the cell membrane as a fluid collection of amphiphilic molecules. This array of proteins, sterols, and phospholipids is organized into a liquid crystal, a structure that lends itself readily to rapid cell growth. Measurements of the membrane’s viscosity show it as a fluid one hundred times as viscous as water, similar to a thin oil. The phospholipid molecules diffuse readily in the plane of the bilayer. Many of the membrane’s proteins also have this freedom of movement, but some are fixed in the membrane by interaction with the cell’s cytoskeleton. Newly synthesized phospholipids insert themselves easily into the existing cell membrane. Intrinsic proteins are inserted during their synthesis on ribosomes bound to the endoplasmic reticulum, whereas extrinsic proteins found on the internal surface of the cell membrane are synthesized on free, or unattached, ribosomes, liberated into the cytoplasm, and then brought to the membrane.