Topology and transport of membrane lipids in bacteria

last two decades have witnessed a break-through in identifying and understa nding the functions of both the proteins and lipids of bacterial membranes. This development was parallelled by increasing insights into the biogenesi s, topology, transport and sorting of membrane proteins. However, progress in research on the membrane distribution and transport of lipids in bacteri a has been slow in that period. The development of novel biochemical in vit ro approaches and recent genetic studies have increased our understanding o f these subjects. The aim of this review is to present an overview of the c urrent knowledge of the distribution and transport of lipids in both Gram-p ositive and Gram-negative bacteria. Special attention is paid to recently o btained results, which are expected to inspire further research to finally unravel these poorly understood phenomena, (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. A ll rights reserved.