The interactions of biosurfactants with lipid membranes

肥皂和洗涤剂用于洗衣店、厨房、油田和分子生物学实验室（仅举几个例子），以分散油腻的、否则不溶的物质在水中。在灭菌和杀精产品中，它们也被用来破坏生物细胞。事实证明，大自然产生了各种各样的类似化合物，称为生物表面活性剂，用于类似的和其他更具体的目的。例如植物中的皂苷（sapo在拉丁语中是肥皂的意思），细菌产生的抗菌脂肽，以及在活细胞中具有多种功能的溶酶脂和糖脂。

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.