Non-uniform membrane probe distribution in resonance energy transfer: application to protein-lipid selectivity.

Biological membranes are, at the molecular level, quasi-two dimensional systems. Membrane components are often distributed non-uniformly in the bilayer plane, as a consequence of lipid phase separation/domain formation or local enrichment/depletion of particular lipid species arising form favorable/unfavorable lipid-membrane protein interactions. Due to its explicit dependence on donor-acceptor distance or local acceptor concentration, resonance energy transfer (RET) has large potential in the characterization of membrane heterogeneity.