The interactions of biosurfactants with lipid membranes

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Soaps and detergents are used in laundries and kitchens, oil fields, and laboratories for molecular biology (to name but a few examples) to disperse greasy, otherwise insoluble materials in water. They are also used to destroy biological cells in sterilizing and spermicidal products. It turns out that nature produces a wide variety of similar compounds, termed biosurfactants, for similar and other, more specific purposes. Examples are saponins (sapo is latin for soap) in plants, antimicrobial lipopeptides produced by bacteria, and lyso- and glycolipids that have multiple functions in the living cell.