These viruses use membrane fusion machinery to enter cells. A report of the study appears in the April 10 issue of the journal Biochemistry. It details how a group of lipids, including cholesterol, can be combined in optimal ratios so that membrane fusion can occur experimentally. Within living cells other than bacteria are compartments that carry out different functions such as protein production and processing. And those compartments are surrounded by a lipid bilayer membrane.
Fusion allows movement from one compartment to another.
Synaptic vesicles fuse with the surface membrane of the neuron, releasing neurotransmitters that bind to the adjacent neuron. Lentz and his colleagues have developed a fusion model for that membrane based on liposomes, lipid sacs they produced in the laboratory from pure lipids. The researchers found that the addition of the polymer polyethylene glycol forced the liposomes close together and that they could then manipulate them to make them fuse. They had already discovered that fusion between these liposomes behaved in a remarkably similar fashion to fusion reported by other scientists between biological membranes. What we found was really mind-blowing.