Hybrid Lipids as a Biological Surface-Active Component

Cell membranes contain small domains (on the order of nanometers in size, sometimes called rafts) of lipids whose hydrocarbon chains are more ordered than those of the surrounding bulk-phase lipids. Whether these domains are fluctuations, metastable, or thermodynamically stable, is still unclear. He...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBiophysical journal Vol. 97; no. 4; pp. 1087 - 1094
Main Authors Brewster, R., Pincus, P.A., Safran, S.A.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Elsevier Inc 19.08.2009
Biophysical Society
The Biophysical Society
Subjects
Biophysics
Cells
Computer Simulation
Hydrocarbons
Lipid Bilayers - chemistry
Lipids
Membrane
Membrane Fluidity
Membrane Microdomains - chemistry
Membranes
Models, Chemical
Surface Tension
Surface-Active Agents - chemistry
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Summary:Cell membranes contain small domains (on the order of nanometers in size, sometimes called rafts) of lipids whose hydrocarbon chains are more ordered than those of the surrounding bulk-phase lipids. Whether these domains are fluctuations, metastable, or thermodynamically stable, is still unclear. Here, we show theoretically how a lipid with one saturated hydrocarbon chain that prefers the ordered environment and one partially unsaturated chain that prefers the less ordered phase, can act as a line-active component. We present a unified model that treats the lipids in both the bulk and at the interface and show how they lower the line tension between domains, eventually driving it to zero at sufficiently large interaction strengths or at sufficiently low temperatures. In this limit, finite-sized domains stabilized by the packing of these hybrid lipids can form as equilibrium structures.
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ISSN:0006-3495
1542-0086
DOI:10.1016/j.bpj.2009.05.051