Abstract
The plasma membrane of cells is a highly complex heterogeneous system compartmentalized into small entities called nanodomains. In our research, we have recently focused on the nanoscopic segregation of gangliosides into ganglioside nanodomains.
Thanks to their ceramide base and a bulky sugar chain that contains one or more sialic acids those gangliosides have high affinity to each other, and as it has been previously shown, they self-assemble into nanodomains of different sizes depending on the membrane composition. The aim of this study is to determine whether a high-resolution single molecule fluorescence technique STED-FCS (stimulated emission depletion fluorescence correlation spectroscopy) is sensitive enough to detect and characterize these nanodomains.
Our newly acquired experimental results support published simulations suggesting that larger and slower nanodomains are well resolvable by STED-FCS, however, smaller and fast-moving nanodomains pose a challenge for the detection of the nanodomains.