NMR studies of binary and ternary systems of phosphatidylcholines

• Lipid lateral segregation in biomimicking model membranes has recently become a topic of great interest due to the biological coupling to the concept of functional rafts. In the studies of liquid-liquid phase coexistence it is found that lateral phase separation into liquid ordered and liquid disordered phases takes place in ternary systems consisting of one unsaturated and one saturated lipid, together with a sterol. The phase behavior is critically dependent on the components with respect to chain length, degree of unsaturation and sterol structure and the driving force of the phase separation is closely related to the ordering effect of the sterol on the lipid chains. This study presents NMR data for binary and ternary systems composed of mixtures of sphingomyelins, phosphatidylcholines and cholesterol. Order parameters were obtained from perdeuterated chains in the saturated lipid and diffusion data of both the saturated and unsaturated lipids were measured with the pulsed field gradient NMR method. Data were analyzed with regard to phase separation into liquid and solid phases.

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