Isolation of detergent-resistant membranes from plant photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic tissues.

Microdomains, or lipid rafts, are transient membrane regions enriched in sphingolipids and sterols that have only recently, but intensively, been studied in plants. In this work, we report a detailed, easy-to-follow, and fast procedure to isolate detergent-resistant membranes (DRMs) from purified plasma membranes (PMs) that was used to obtain DRMs from Phaseolus vulgaris and Nicotiana tabacum leaves and germinating Zea mays embryos. Characterized according to yield, ultrastructure, and sterol composition, these DRM preparations showed similarities to analogous preparations from other eukaryotic cells.

Kinetics of the H+-ATPase from dry and 5-hours-imbibed maize embryos in its native, solubilized, and reconstituted forms.

Membranes undergo recovery upon rehydration in seed germination. Previous work has described that the plasma membrane H+-ATPase from maize embryos adopts two different forms at 0 and 5 h of imbibition. We investigated how the kinetics of these two forms could be affected by alterations in the plasma membrane (PM).