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The metastability of saturated phosphatidylcholines depends on the acyl chain length
Journal article   Peer reviewed

The metastability of saturated phosphatidylcholines depends on the acyl chain length

Leonard Finegold and Michael A. Singer
Biochimica et biophysica acta. Biomembranes, v 855(3), pp 417-420
1986
PMID: 3947630

Abstract

Acyl chain length Differential scanning calorimetry Metastability Phase transition Phospholipid bilayer
We report the peak temperatures and enthalpies of the main (gel to liquid crystal) transitions and ‘s-transitions’ of symmetric saturated PC's ( C n, PC) with n varying from 12 to 22, where s-transition is defined as the transition between metastable and stable phases. The line for s-transition peak temperature versus n (t = 1.98n – 16.0°C) the crosses the corresponding pre- and main-transition curves between n = 12 and 14. We also find that the metastability pattern for lipids of n less than 14 is different to that for n greater than 14 (and is similar to that of the phosphatidylethanolamine analogs). For n greater than 14 the enthalpy of the s-transition decreases with increasing n and extrapolates to zero above n = 20, implying that the s-(orthorhombic) and gel (quasi-hexagonal) phases become identical. That simultaneous gel-liquid crystal transition and metastability is restricted to the range n = 12 to 20 may be correlated with the predominance in natural lipids of these acyl chain lengths.

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Domestic collaboration
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Web of Science research areas
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Biophysics
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