Chiral molecular self-assembly of phospholipid tubules: A circular dichroism study
AUTOR(ES)
Spector, Mark S.
FONTE
The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
RESUMO
We report on spectroscopic studies of the chiral structure in phospholipid tubules formed in mixtures of alcohol and water. Synthetic phospholipids containing diacetylenic moieties in the acyl chains self-assemble into hollow, cylindrical tubules in appropriate conditions. Circular dichroism provides a direct measure of chirality of the molecular structure. We find that the CD spectra of tubules formed in mixtures of alcohol and water depends strongly on the alcohol used and the lipid concentration. The relative spectral intensity of different circular dichroism bands correlates with the number of bilayers observed using microscopy. The results provide experimental evidence that tubule formation is based on chiral packing of the lipid molecules and that interbilayer interactions are important to the tubule structure.
ACESSO AO ARTIGO
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=24025Documentos Relacionados
- Chiral tubule self-assembly from an achiral diynoic lipid
- Electron microscopic study of supramolecular liquid crystalline polymers formed by molecular-recognition-directed self-assembly from complementary chiral components.
- Self-assembly of helical ribbons
- Self-assembly of biological structures.
- Self-assembly of membrane junctions.
