FLUID BILAYER MODEL

Generally accepted model for membranes in cells. In its original form, the model held that proteins floated in a sea of phospholipids arranged as a bilayer with a central hydrophobic domain. Although it is now recognized that some proteins are restrained by interactions with cytoskeletal elements, and that the phospholipid annulus around a protein may contain only specific types of lipid, the model is still considered broadly correct.