Cell membrane

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The cell membrane (also called the plasma membrane or plasmalemma) is the biological membrane separating the interior of a cell from the outside environment.

It is a semipermeable lipid bilayer found in all cells. It contains a wide variety of biological molecules, primarily proteins and lipids, which are involved in a vast array of cellular processes such as cell adhesion, ion channel conductance and cell signaling. The plasma membrane also serves as the attachment point for both the intracellular cytoskeleton and, if present, the extracellular cell wall.

For more information about Cell membrane, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.


News tagged with cell membrane

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A cell's 'cap' of bundled fibers could yield clues to disease

A cell's 'cap' of bundled fibers could yield clues to disease (w/ Video)

Biology / Biotechnology

created Dec 02, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

It turns out that wearing a cap is good for you, at least if you are a mammal cell.


Nervy research: Researchers take initial look at ion channels in a model system

Nervy research: Researchers take initial look at ion channels in a model system

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Dec 02, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Before one of your muscles can twitch, before the thought telling it to flex can race down your nerve, a tiny floodgate of sorts -- called an ion channel -- must open in the surface of each cell in these organs ...


An atomic-level look at an HIV accomplice

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Nov 19, 2009 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Since the discovery in 2007 that a component of human semen called SEVI boosts infectivity of the virus that causes AIDS, researchers have been trying to learn more about SEVI and how it works, in hopes of ...


Imaging study shows HIV particles assembling around its genome

Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS

created Nov 17, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- The genesis of one the planet's most lethal viruses, HIV, has been caught on tape. New imaging experiments show individual HIV genomes -- strands of RNA — docking on the inner membrane of an infected cell ...





Search results for cell membrane


Study explores 'garbage disposal' role of VCP and implications for degenerative disease

Study explores 'garbage disposal' role of VCP and implications for degenerative disease

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created 23 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

It's important to finish what you start, say Jeong-Sun Ju and researchers from Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. In the December 14, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology, Ju et al. ...


Researchers identify a scaffold regulating protein disposal

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Dec 11, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

How does a cell manage to identify and degrade the diverse types of defective proteins and thus protect the body against serious diseases? The researchers Sabine C. Horn, Professor Thomas Sommer, Professor Udo Heinemann and ...


Synthetic protein mimics structure, function of metalloprotein in nature

Synthetic protein mimics structure, function of metalloprotein in nature

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Dec 10, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1

Scientists have designed a synthetic protein that is both a structural model and a functional model of a native protein, nitric-oxide reductase.


Biofunctionalized magnetic-vortex microdiscs

Highlight: Biofunctionalized magnetic-vortex microdiscs

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Dec 09, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Users from Argonne's Materials Science Division and University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine, working collaboratively on a user science project with CNM's Nanobio Interfaces Group, have discovered ...


One Can Act Without Group Support; Even in the Bacterial World

One Can Act Without Group Support; Even in the Bacterial World

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Dec 08, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A single bacterium can act alone, performing the same kinds of actions that a group normally does. The behavior of that bacterium can be manipulated at the cellular level. That’s the intriguing ...


A mathematical model of a simple circuit in a chicken brain raises fundamental questions about our understanding of neural circu

Mathematical model of a simple circuit in a chicken brain raises fundamental questions

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 01, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (28) | comments 17

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Web site Neuroanthropology asks visitors to complete this quote, "One of the difficulties in understanding the brain is ...". In addition to the typical facetious remarks, such as "so ...


Clinical trials launched for treating most aggressive brain tumor with personalized cell vaccines

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created Nov 30, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

The University of Navarra Hospital (Spain) has launched a series of clinical trials in order to assess the efficacy of an immunotherapy treatment. This approach involves the application of personalised vaccines —produced ...


Scientists get up close to bacteria's toxic pumps

Scientists get up close to bacteria's toxic pumps

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 30, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Scientists are building a clearer image of the machinery employed by bacteria to spread antibiotic resistance or cause diseases such as whooping cough, peptic stomach ulcers and legionnaires' disease.


Control of blood clotting by platelets described; provides medical promise

Medicine & Health / Research

created Nov 24, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Cell fragments called platelets are essential to promote blood clotting. Virginia Tech faculty members and students have discovered novel molecular interactions at the surface of platelets that control blood clotting.


Computational microscope peers into the working ribosome

Computational microscope peers into the working ribosome (w/ Video)

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 23, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 2

Two new studies reveal in unprecedented detail how the ribosome interacts with other molecules to assemble new proteins and guide them toward their destination in biological cells. The studies used molecular ...



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