What history tells us XXX. The emergence of the fluid mosaic model of membranes

摘要

In 1968, Walther Stoeckenius summarized in Science the conclusions of a meeting held the previous year at Frascati nearRome on ‘membrane modelling and membrane formation’(Stoeckenius 1968). The diversity of the issues that wereraised, and of the methods and models that were used, wassuch that no consensus could be reached. At that time, even theexistence of a cell membrane was not unanimously accepted!Three years later, S Jonathan Singer (1971) proposed themosaic model of the structure of cell membranes to replacethe previously dominant Danielli–Robertson unit membranemodel, and one year later he and Garth L Nicolson added theword ‘fluid’ to ‘mosaic’ (Singer and Nicolson 1972). The newmodel was rapidly and unanimously accepted, and it remainedunaltered during the next forty years.