Lipids self-organization

A typical biomembrane consists largely of amphiphilic lipids with small hydrophilic head groups and long hydrophobic fatty acid tails. These amphiphiles are insoluble in water (<10 ° mol L ) and capable of self-organization into uitrathin bilaycr lipid membranes (BLMs). Until 1977 only natural lipids, in particular phospholipids like lecithins, were believed to form spherical and related vesicular membrane structures. Intricate interactions of the head groups were supposed to be necessary for the self-organization of several ten thousands of... 

The relationships between the molecular structure of environmental pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and their rate of biodegradation are still not well understood, though some empirical relationships have been established. Self-organizing maps (SOMs) have been used to rationalize the resistance of PCBs to biodegradation and to predict the susceptibility to degradation of those compounds for which experimental data are lacking.3 The same technique has been used to analyze the behavior of lipid bilayers, following a... 

Murtola, T., et al., Conformational analysis of lipid molecules by self-organizing maps, /. Chem. Phys., 125, 054707, 2007. 

The observation of single channel currents may suggest the successful self-organization of supramolecular channels. This process may require several steps (1) incorporation of the amphiphilic carboxylate-ammonium ion pair into the bilayer lipid membrane (2) molecular recognition of the relatively polar oligoether chain from the surrounding hydrophobic lipid components to induce domain formation of molecular level and (3) interlayer connection of these hydrophilic domains existing in different lipid layers. 

The first synthetic amphiphiles found to self-organize into bilayers, were quaternary ammonium salts bearing two long alkyl chains 1.13.47.48.49 it is interesting to note that these molecules did not contain a connector moiety between the polar and the apolar part, as in the case of the biolipids. While the physicochemical properties of these bilayers were found to be comparable to those of the biological membranes, the synthetic lipids were found to... 

The design of artificial self-organizing systems is based on the ability of some molecules which contain simultaneously hydrophobic and hydrophilic groups to form molecular assemblies of definite structure in solution. Examples of the assemblies that can be used to suppress undesirable recombination processes are polyelectrolytes, micelles, microemulsions, planar lipid membranes covering an orifice in a film separating two aqueous solutions, unilamellar vesicles, multilamel-lar vesicles and colloids of various inorganic substances (see reviews [8-18] and references therein). 

Hydrophobically modified polybetaines combine the behavior of zwitterions and amphiphilic polymers. Due to the superposition of repulsive hydrophobic and attractive ionic interactions, they favor the formation of self-organized and (micro)phase-separated systems in solution, at interfaces as well as in the bulk phase. Thus, glasses with liquid-crystalline order, lyotropic mesophases, vesicles, monolayers, and micelles are formed. Particular efforts have been dedicated to hydrophobically modified polyphosphobetaines, as they can be considered as polymeric lipids [5,101,225-228]. One can emphasize that much of the research on polymeric phospholipids was not particularly focused on the betaine behavior, but rather on the understanding of the Upid membrane, and on biomimicking. So, often much was learnt about biology and the life sciences, but little on polybetaines as such. 

The binding of synthetic ion channels and pores to lipid bilayer membranes often causes a change in intra- or intermolecular self-organization that is visible in sufficiently sensitive methods such as fluorescence (e.g. tryptophan emission) [14] or circular dichroism spectroscopy and can be used to determine the partition coefficient. Convenient methods of detection under relevant conditions are fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) or fluorescence depth quenching (FDQ) [3, 4, 6]. Many fluorescent probes for the labeling of both synthetic ion channels/... 

---