Fig. 1.

Structure of caveolin-1. Cav-1 contains a hydrophobic central domain with a hairpin-like conformation inserted in the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane. 14–16 Cav-1 monomers form a single cav-1 homooligomer. A simplified dimmer is illustrated here. Both the COOH and NH₂ terminus of the cav-1 monomer face the cytoplasm. The caveolin scaffolding domain is located between amino acid residues 82–101 in the NH₂-terminal region adjacent to the hydrophobic membrane-insertion domain. The COOH-terminal region of cav-1 contains 3 palmitoylated cysteine residues. Inset: caveolae viewed by electron microscopy (×50,000).