ABSTRACT
Communication between a cell and its environment is mostly mediated through the signals received and processed at the plasma membrane. The plasma membrane therefore needs to be able to sense and sort these signals, and in order to achieve this, it is organized into domains that accommodate specic populations of resident membrane molecules. Plasma membrane domains can be composed of specic lipids, such as lipid rafts,1 proteins,2,3 or a combination of both. Caveolae are plasma membrane domains with a specic lipid and protein composition4 that confers them with a characteristic membrane curvature, dening them as ask-shaped inward plasma membrane invaginations with a diameter of 60-80 nm (Figure 6.1). These membrane microdomains were rst noticed in 1953 by Nobel laureate microscopist G.E. Palade and were described and named “caveola intracellularis” by E. Yamada in 1955. It took approximately 40 years to identify caveolin-1 (Cav1), the main
6.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 113 6.2 Caveolae and Their Formation Requirements .............................................. 114
6.2.1 Caveolins, The Main Component of Caveolae ................................. 114 6.2.2 Caveolae Regulatory Molecules ....................................................... 115
6.3 Caveolae Trafcking ..................................................................................... 116 6.3.1 Exocytosis and Recycling of Caveolae ............................................. 116 6.3.2 Endocytosis of Caveolae ................................................................... 117
6.4 Visualization of Caveolae ............................................................................. 118 6.4.1 Electron Microscopy-Based Technology to Study Caveolae
Morphology ...................................................................................... 118 6.4.2 Analysis of Caveolae by Epiuorescence, Confocal, and Total
Internal Reection Fluorescence Microscopy .................................. 120 6.4.3 Super-Resolution Microscopy Applied to Caveolae ......................... 121
6.5 Caveolar Functions and Human Disease ...................................................... 122 Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................124 References ..............................................................................................................124
