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Review
. 2024 Jun:88:102377.
doi: 10.1016/j.ceb.2024.102377. Epub 2024 May 31.

Lipid osmosis, membrane tension, and other mechanochemical driving forces of lipid flow

Yongli Zhang  1 , Chenxiang Lin  2
Affiliations
Review

Lipid osmosis, membrane tension, and other mechanochemical driving forces of lipid flow

Yongli Zhang et al. Curr Opin Cell Biol. 2024 Jun.

Abstract

Nonvesicular lipid transport among different membranes or membrane domains plays crucial roles in lipid homeostasis and organelle biogenesis. However, the forces that drive such lipid transport are not well understood. We propose that lipids tend to flow towards the membrane area with a higher membrane protein density in a process termed lipid osmosis. This process lowers the membrane tension in the area, resulting in a membrane tension difference called osmotic membrane tension. We examine the thermodynamic basis and experimental evidence of lipid osmosis and osmotic membrane tension. We predict that lipid osmosis can drive bulk lipid flows between different membrane regions through lipid transfer proteins, scramblases, or similar barriers that selectively pass lipids but not membrane proteins. We also speculate on the biological functions of lipid osmosis. Finally, we explore other driving forces for lipid transfer and describe potential methods and systems to further test our theory.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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