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I know that lipids are carried around the body in the blood either as micelles or by lipid-binding proteins which allow them to be solved.

Lipids can't always be integrated in a membrane though, the phospholipids used in membranes have to be synthesised somewhere from a precursor which will also by hydrophobic.

Consequently, at some point there will have to be transport of lipids within the cell where the lipids will need to be in solution. How is this facilitated?

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Like in the blood, intracellular lipid trafficking is facilitated by vesicular transport and lipid carriers like fatty acid binding proteins. In addition, intracellular membranes are densely packed and they can exchange lipids by collision and transient hemifusion. If you have access to Cell, a good review is from Prinz W. 2010 Lipid Trafficking sans vesicles, Where, Why, How?

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  • $\begingroup$ I have got access to Cell when I'm on my uni's VPN but it appears I can download the PDF even without access that way. Thanks, very interesting! $\endgroup$
    – Armatus
    Commented Jun 7, 2013 at 8:27

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