plasma membrane

GO:0005886 · Envelope · Membrane · Proposed

The lipid membrane surrounding a cell that separates the cytoplasm from the external environment and houses proteins for selective transport, signaling, and envelope biogenesis. [GO:0005886]

Synonyms: cell membrane; cytoplasmic membrane; bacterial inner membrane

Part of: GO:0071944 — cell periphery (no local record)

UniProt location names: UniProt Consortium, CC BY 4.0. Reference label and route sources.

Components

Component	Type	Part of / acts on	Grounding	Genes	Stoichiometry	Essential	Role
plasma-membrane lipids	Lipid	part of	Reviewed label only (reviewed name; no accession asserted)			ESSENTIAL	Self-assemble into the hydrophobic membrane boundary that encloses the cytoplasm and sets the permeability boundary. `DOI:10.1093/femsre/fuv008` Sohlenkamp and Geiger 2016 review the structural diversity and biosynthesis of bacterial membrane lipids. `DOI:10.1038/nrmicro2576` Albers and Meyer 2011 review archaeal membrane lipids as core archaeal envelope constituents.
integral plasma membrane proteins	Protein	part of	Reviewed label only (reviewed name; no accession asserted)			CONDITIONAL	Provide selective transport, signaling, energy-transduction, secretion, and envelope-biogenesis activities embedded in the plasma-membrane lipid phase. `DOI:10.1101/cshperspect.a000414` Silhavy, Kahne and Walker 2010 describe the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane as the site of transporters and envelope assembly systems. `DOI:10.1038/nrmicro2576` Albers and Meyer 2011 review archaeal cytoplasmic membranes as protein-bearing envelope membranes built from archaeal ether lipids. `PMID:25002088` Douglas and Konopka 2014 review fungal plasma-membrane domains that contain transporters and integral membrane proteins.

Taxonomic distribution

NCBITaxon:2 Bacteria — UNIVERSAL: Bacterial cells are bounded by a cytoplasmic membrane inside any wall, outer membrane, capsule, or S-layer. [DOI:10.1101/cshperspect.a000414]
NCBITaxon:2157 Archaea — UNIVERSAL: Archaeal cells are bounded by a cytoplasmic membrane built from archaeal ether lipids beneath any wall or S-layer. [DOI:10.1038/nrmicro2576]
NCBITaxon:4751 Fungi — UNIVERSAL: Fungal cells organize transporters, eisosome/MCC domains, and sterol-rich microdomains in a plasma membrane beneath the wall. [PMID:25002088]

Canonical examples

NCBITaxon:562 Escherichia coli — Model Gram-negative bacterium for cytoplasmic-membrane transport, Sec insertion, and inner-membrane envelope biogenesis. [DOI:10.1101/cshperspect.a000414]
NCBITaxon:4932 Saccharomyces cerevisiae — Model budding yeast for plasma-membrane microdomains and eisosome-associated membrane organization. [PMID:25002088]

Functions

selective permeability barrier — The plasma membrane separates cytoplasm from the external milieu while membrane proteins mediate controlled import, export, and ion movement.
- DOI:10.1101/cshperspect.a000414 Silhavy, Kahne and Walker 2010 review transport across the bacterial inner membrane as a central envelope activity.
- DOI:10.1038/nrmicro2576 Albers and Meyer 2011 review the archaeal cell envelope as bounded by a cytoplasmic membrane built from ether lipids.
- PMID:25002088 Douglas and Konopka 2014 review fungal plasma-membrane compartmentation of transporters and other integral membrane proteins.
membrane-embedded bioenergetics — In bacteria and archaea, respiratory and ATP-synthase complexes in the cytoplasmic membrane use ion gradients across the membrane for energy conservation.
- DOI:10.1101/cshperspect.a000414 Silhavy, Kahne and Walker 2010 describe the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane as the energized membrane that supports transport and envelope biogenesis.
- DOI:10.1038/nrmicro2576 Albers and Meyer 2011 review archaeal cytoplasmic membranes as energy-transducing envelope membranes.

Mechanism graphs

Membrane lipids and proteins form a selective cell boundary (ASSEMBLY)

Amphipathic lipids assemble into a plasma-membrane permeability boundary. Integral membrane proteins embedded in that boundary provide the selective transport and energy-linked activities that make the membrane functional.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
plasma-membrane lipids	self-assemble into	plasma membrane	`GO:0005886` GO:0005886 defines the plasma membrane as the membrane surrounding a cell. `DOI:10.1093/femsre/fuv008` Sohlenkamp and Geiger 2016 review the lipid classes that build bacterial membranes. `DOI:10.1038/nrmicro2576` Albers and Meyer 2011 review archaeal cytoplasmic membranes built from ether lipids.
plasma membrane	encloses	cytoplasm	`GO:0005886` GO:0005886 defines the plasma membrane as the membrane surrounding a cell.
integral plasma membrane proteins	embed in	plasma membrane	`DOI:10.1101/cshperspect.a000414` Silhavy, Kahne and Walker 2010 review the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane as a protein-rich transport and biogenesis platform. `DOI:10.1038/nrmicro2576` Albers and Meyer 2011 review protein complexes in the archaeal cytoplasmic membrane and cell envelope. `PMID:25002088` Douglas and Konopka 2014 review fungal plasma-membrane domains organized around transporters and other integral membrane proteins.
integral plasma membrane proteins	mediate	transmembrane transport	`DOI:10.1101/cshperspect.a000414` Silhavy, Kahne and Walker 2010 place protein transport and envelope precursor movement across the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane. `PMID:25002088` Douglas and Konopka 2014 review fungal plasma-membrane transporters as residents of organized membrane compartments.

Discussions

CURATION_TODO (RESOLVED): Use the GO label plasma membrane while preserving cytoplasmic membrane as the microbial envelope name. GO:0005886 is the exact cellular-component term. Bacterial and archaeal literature usually calls the same cell-bounding structure the cytoplasmic membrane or, in Gram-negative bacteria, the inner membrane.
CURATION_TODO (RESOLVED): Avoid bilayer-only wording for the taxon-spanning plasma membrane record. Bacterial and fungal plasma membranes are bilayers built largely from ester-linked lipids, whereas archaeal cytoplasmic membranes use ether lipids and can be diether bilayers or tetraether monolayers. This broad record therefore uses lipid-boundary wording and leaves exact lipid topology to lineage-specific records.

Evidence

DOI:10.1101/cshperspect.a000414 Silhavy TJ, Kahne D and Walker S 2010, 'The bacterial cell envelope', Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology.
DOI:10.1093/femsre/fuv008 Sohlenkamp C and Geiger O 2016, 'Bacterial membrane lipids: diversity in structures and pathways', FEMS Microbiology Reviews.
DOI:10.1038/nrmicro2576 Albers SV and Meyer BH 2011, 'The archaeal cell envelope', Nature Reviews Microbiology.
PMID:25002088 Douglas LM and Konopka JB 2014, 'Fungal membrane organization: the eisosome concept', Annual Review of Microbiology.

Curation history

2026-09-11T04:16:55Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-11T04:17:37Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added cell-membrane and cytoplasmic-membrane synonymy, membrane and cell-periphery parentage, lipid and integral-protein components, bacterial, archaeal, and fungal taxonomy, E. coli and S. cerevisiae examples, permeability and bioenergetic functions, a lipid-bilayer assembly graph, DOI/GO evidence, and a terminology discussion.
2026-09-11T04:18:01Z codex · TIGHTENED_GROUNDING_LABEL — Changed the GO:0055085 graph node label from selective transmembrane transport to the canonical GO label, transmembrane transport.
2026-09-11T04:28:40Z codex · ADDRESS_REVIEW — Resolved PR #409 issues #410 and #411 by replacing bilayer-only plasma membrane wording with archaeal-compatible lipid-boundary wording and adding archaeal and fungal support for taxon-spanning integral membrane protein claims.
2026-09-21T12:05:18Z codex · REPLACED_UNREADABLE_EVIDENCE — Resolved #1239 by routing Douglas and Konopka 2014 fungal plasma-membrane evidence through reachable PMID:25002088 instead of the unreadable Annual Reviews DOI.

Source: data/structures/envelope/plasma_membrane.yaml