Mechanism By Which Ceramide Signalling Occurs
Currently, the means by which ceramide acts as a signaling molecule are not clear.
One hypothesis is that ceramide generated in the plasma membrane stabilizes smaller lipid platforms known as lipid rafts, allowing them to serve as platforms for signalling molecules. Moreover, as rafts can cross the entire lipid bilayer, they can serve as the link between signals outside of the cell to signals to be generated within the cell.
Ceramide has also been shown to form organized large channels traversing the mitochondrial outer membrane. This leads to the egress of proteins from the intermembrane space.
Read more about this topic: Ceramide
Famous quotes containing the words mechanism and/or occurs:
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)
“Many people have an oversimplified picture of bonding that could be called the “epoxy” theory of relationships...if you don’t get properly “glued” to your babies at exactly the right time, which only occurs very soon after birth, then you will have missed your chance.”
—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)