Response to 'how slow is the transbilayer diffusion (Flip-Flop) of cholesterol?'

摘要

In their comment (1) on our recently published article discussing the kinetics of cholesterol transport using small angle neutron scattering as a noninvasive probe (2), Steck and Lange raise several questions regarding the analysis and interpretation of our data. They are particularly concerned with our very slow intramembrane flipping rates and wonder whether the data might not be equally well interpreted with very fast cholesterol flipping. Indeed, although we are certainly not the first to report slow flipping rates, fast flipping rates are now generally accepted (3,4).