Cancer cell membrane lipid raft

Cancer cell membrane lipid rafts are discrete, dynamic plasma membrane microdomains enriched in cholesterol and sphingolipids that compartmentalize and concentrate specific signaling molecules to orchestrate crucial cellular processes. In cancer, these lipid rafts serve as organizing centers for prosurvival, migratory, and metastatic pathways by clustering receptors such as IGF-1 receptor, VEGF receptor, CD44, and death receptors (Fas/CD95) within their domains, thereby modulating signaling involved in tumor growth, survival, metastasis, and angiogenesis. The abundance and altered composition of lipid rafts in cancer cells can contribute to therapy resistance and metastatic progression. Targeting raft structure (often via modulating cholesterol content with drugs such as statins, edelfosine, and perifosine, or dietary agents like resveratrol) can disrupt these signaling platforms, promote apoptosis, and inhibit metastatic spread, but also poses safety challenges because lipid rafts are present in normal cells and mediate essential functions beyond oncogenic signaling

Other names

lipid raftmembrane raftcholesterol-enriched microdomaindetergent-resistant membrane

Disruption of cholesterol-rich lipid rafts to impair oncogenic signaling; Promotion of death receptor clustering in rafts to induce apoptosis; Inhibition of raft-dependent endocytosis and signaling pathways