Cholesterol/Phospholipid Interactions in Hybrid Bilayer Membranes

Published

May 25, 2007

Author(s)

Dustin Levy, Kimberly Briggman

Abstract

The interactions between cholesterol and saturated phospholipids in hybrid bilayer membranes (HBMs) were investigated using the interface-sensitive technique of vibrational sum frequency spectroscopy (VSFS). The unique sensitivity of VSFS to order/disorder transitions of the lipid acyl chains was used to determine the main gel to liquid crystal phase transition temperature, Tm, for HBMs of binary cholesterol/phospholipid mixtures on octadecanethiolate self-assembled monolayers. The phase transition temperature and the breadth of the transition were shown to increase with cholesterol content, and the phase boundaries observed in the cholesterol/phospholipid HBMs were comparable to the published phase diagrams of binary cholesterol/phospholipid vesicles. A thermodynamic assessment of the cooperative units of theHBMphase transitions revealed the presence of<10nmdiameter domains that were independent of the cholesterol composition.

Citation

Biophysical Journal

Volume

23

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

cholesterol-lipid phase diagrams, hybrid bilayer membranes, SFG, supported bilayer membrane mimics, vibrational sum frequency

Citation

Levy, D. and Briggman, K. (2007), Cholesterol/Phospholipid Interactions in Hybrid Bilayer Membranes, Biophysical Journal, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=841051 (Accessed October 11, 2025)