tridactylus epithelial kidney (Ptk2) cells were cultured in DMEM (Sigma-Aldrich,
UK) supplemented with 15% fetal bovine serum (Sigma-Aldrich) and 1%
For microscopy experiments,
the cells were seeded onto 25 mm glass coverslips and allowed to grow
to a confluence of about 75%. For sFCS experiments, the cells were
labeled with Atto647N-DPPE or Atto647N-sphingomyelin (AttoTec, Germany)
by incubating the cells at a lipid analogue concentration of 0.4 μg/μL
in L15 (Sigma-Aldrich) at room temperature for 15 min. After cells
were washed twice with L15, the experiments were performed at 37 °C.
The diffusion of the lipid analogues in the cellular membrane was
measured in the periphery of the cell at its bottom membrane.
Transfections of Ptk2 cells with GPI-anchored green fluorescent
protein were performed using Lipofectamine 3000 (Thermo Fisher) according
to the manufacturer’s protocol. The GPI-GFP plasmid was obtained
from Kai Simons’ Lab (Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell
Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany).