Structure and Thermotropic Behaviour of Mixed Choline Phospholipid Model Membranes

Phosphatidylcholines and sphingomyelins are among the most abundant lipids in mammalian cell membranes, being major components of platelets or erythrocytes, and of the lipid monolayer of lipoproteins. General efforts have been devoted to the elucidation of the interaction of the ubiquitous membrane component cholesterol with these choline phospholipids, but fewer studies have been reported on the interaction between the phospholipids themselves. A gel to liquid-crystalline phase transition was observed for pure sphingomyelin liposomes at physiological temperature, while palmitoyloleoyl phosphatidylcholine adopts a liquid-crystalline phase in the temperature range 273–323 K. The two phospholipids are miscible at all molar ratios in the liquid-crystalline phase, characterized by very similar lamellar repeat distances for all binary lipid mixtures. The gel phase of pure sphingolipid liposomes exhibited a markedly smaller lamellar repeat distance as compared to mixed lipid vesicles, which increased slightly with temperature for the pure sphingomyelin (66.9–69.2 Å). Concomitantly, altered hydrocarbon chain packing was observed. Similar diffractograms were obtained in the presence of 10 mol% phosphatidylcholine. However, in the composition range between 20 and 60 mol% phosphatidylcholine in the phosphatidylcholine–sphingomyelin admixture, the lamellar repeat distance in the gel phase was markedly increased and remained almost constant (around 75 Å) below the phase transition.