Short-Lived Cages Restrict Protein Diffusion in the Plasma Membrane
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The plasma membrane is a heterogeneous environment characterized by anomalous diffusion and the presence of microdomains that are molecularly distinct from the bulk membrane. Using single particle tracking of the C-type lectin CD93, we have identified for the first time the transient trapping of transmembrane proteins in cage-like microdomains which restrict protein diffusion. These cages are stabilized by actin-dependent confinement regions, but are separate structures with sizes and lifespans uncorrelated to those of the underlying actin corral. These membrane cages require cholesterol for their strength and stability, with cholesterol depletion decreasing both. Despite this, cages are much larger in size and are longer lived than lipid rafts, suggesting instead that cholesterol-dependent effects on membrane fluidity or molecular packing play a role in cage formation. This diffusional compartment in the plasma membrane has characteristics of both a diffusional barrier and a membrane microdomain, with a size and lifespan intermediate between short-lived microdomains such as lipid rafts and long-lasting diffusional barriers created by the actin cytoskeleton.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".