ABSTRACT Biological membranes, depicted as being composed of a fluid bilayer considered to be a uniform semi-permeable barrier, have evolved into a complex and dynamic environment in which lipid assembly forms a fluid platform that segregates membrane components into a sort of patchwork of domains. Cholesterol, an essential component of animal cell membranes whose concentration is tightly controlled by a feedback system, is often found in domains in biological and model membranes. A wide variety of physiological functions – such as signal transduction processes, pathogen entry, protein sorting and trafficking, modulation of peptide incorporation and channel formation – have been attributed to these domains. The focus of this review is to gain some understanding on how membrane cholesterol and closely-related sterols modulate some proteins.
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