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Cholesterol/Phospholipid Interactions in Hybrid Bilayer Membranes

Published

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

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 March 28, 2024)
Created May 24, 2007, Updated October 12, 2021