Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy in membrane structure elucidation

This review describes the application of fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) for the study of biological membranes. Monitoring the fluorescence signal fluctuations, it is possible to obtain diffusion constants and concentrations for several membrane components. Focusing the attention on lipid bilayers, we explain the technical difficulties and the new FCS-based methodologies introduced to overcome them. Finally, we report several examples of studies which apply FCS on both model and biological membranes to obtain interesting insight in the topic of lateral membrane organization.