Neutron Reflection Studies for the Sphingosine Phosphate (S1P) interaction with Model Lipid Membranes

Sphingolipids are the important components of eukaryotic cell membranes, and play many biological roles in signal transduction, cell adhesion, and neuron myelinization. Two important sphingolipids, sphingosine (Sph) and its phosphorylated form S1P, work as signal molecules to regulate cell fate at cell membrane. The variation of membrane structure after incorporating Sph or S1P, and the distribution and the location of sphingosine in membrane are the key to understand the unique role of sphingosine in the variation of membrane permeability and even the cell death. Using the deuterium labelling, Neutron reflectivity enables us to investigate Sphingolipids interaction with model membrane at molecular level, which will relate directly to the nature of interaction and how it affects cellular function.