Interest in lipid characteristics of metastatic cells was aroused by the consideration that the various lipid components of cell membranes influence a broad spectrum of cell surface biological functions which are involved in different steps of the metastatic cascade. Correlation between invasive properties and characteristics of cell surface components has been appropriately studied in a limited number of metastatic cell systems isolated by in vivo and in vitro procedures. The major findings of this study have been reported in this review. Among membrane lipid components, glycolipids and phospholipids appeared particularly affected in tumor cells which acquired a metastatic phenotype. In fact, the reduction of complex gangliosides typical of transformed cell lines was even more evident in a highly metastatic variant selected from RSV-transformed murine fibroblasts. The reduction of complex gangliosides, mainly GD1a, particularly affected the adhesion sites of this variant. In a fibrosarcoma line, T3 cells, the metastatic properties appeared to be correlated with the content and cell surface expression of Gb3ose, a glycolipid characteristic of this line. Moreover, a particularly high level of ether-linked lipids was found in high metastatic variants isolated from murine melanoma and fibrosarcoma lines, as well as in human mammary carcinomas. The findings considered in this review are discussed for their possible relevance to the invasive properties of metastatic cells.