Introduction

Recent research has unveiled that the lipid bilayers in mammalian cell membranes may have an unexpectedly uneven composition, challenging long-held beliefs in cell biology. This groundbreaking study, pioneered by researchers from the Levental Laboratory of Membrane Biology in Virginia and the Doktorova Cell Membrane Biophysics Lab at Stockholm University, reveals that the unique properties of cholesterol play a vital role in creating this asymmetry, yielding new insights into their physiological functions.

Key Findings

Milka Doktorova, the first author of the study published in *Cell*, stated that this finding disrupts a major assumption about cell biology: "The plasma membrane, a flexible bilayer that surrounds each cell, can exhibit drastically different phospholipid abundances between its two leaflets."