Skip to main content
PMC home page
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1991 Feb 1;88(3):892–896. doi: 10.1073/pnas.88.3.892

Model for the structure of the lipid bilayer.

R W Pastor 1, R M Venable 1, M Karplus 1
PMCID: PMC50920  PMID: 1992480

Abstract

A detailed model for the structure and dynamics of the interior of the lipid bilayer in the liquid crystal phase is presented. The model includes two classes of motion: (i) the internal dynamics of the chains, determined from Brownian dynamics simulations with a continuous version of the Marcelja mean-field potential, and (ii) noncollective reorientation (axial rotation and wobble) of the entire molecule, introduced by a cone model. The basic unit of the model is a single lipid chain with field parameters adjusted to fit the 2H order parameters and the frequency-dependent 13C NMR T1 relaxation times of dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine bilayers. The chain configurations obtained from the trajectory are used to construct a representation of the bilayer. The resulting lipid assembly is consistent with NMR, neutron diffraction, surface area, and density data. It indicates that a high degree of chain disorder and entanglement exists in biological membranes.

Full text

PDF
892

Images in this article

895Image
on p.895
895Image
on p.895

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Briggs M. S., Gierasch L. M. Molecular mechanisms of protein secretion: the role of the signal sequence. Adv Protein Chem. 1986;38:109–180. doi: 10.1016/s0065-3233(08)60527-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Brown M. F., Ribeiro A. A., Williams G. D. New view of lipid bilayer dynamics from 2H and 13C NMR relaxation time measurements. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1983 Jul;80(14):4325–4329. doi: 10.1073/pnas.80.14.4325. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Davis J. H. The description of membrane lipid conformation, order and dynamics by 2H-NMR. Biochim Biophys Acta. 1983 Mar 21;737(1):117–171. doi: 10.1016/0304-4157(83)90015-1. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Dill K. A., Naghizadeh J., Marqusee J. A. Chain molecules at high densities at interfaces. Annu Rev Phys Chem. 1988;39:425–461. doi: 10.1146/annurev.pc.39.100188.002233. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Levine Y. K., Wilkins M. H. Structure of oriented lipid bilayers. Nat New Biol. 1971 Mar 17;230(11):69–72. doi: 10.1038/newbio230069a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Lewis B. A., Engelman D. M. Lipid bilayer thickness varies linearly with acyl chain length in fluid phosphatidylcholine vesicles. J Mol Biol. 1983 May 15;166(2):211–217. doi: 10.1016/s0022-2836(83)80007-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Lipari G., Szabo A. Effect of librational motion on fluorescence depolarization and nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation in macromolecules and membranes. Biophys J. 1980 Jun;30(3):489–506. doi: 10.1016/S0006-3495(80)85109-5. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Marcelja S. Chain ordering in liquid crystals. II. Structure of bilayer membranes. Biochim Biophys Acta. 1974 Oct 29;367(2):165–176. doi: 10.1016/0005-2736(74)90040-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Nagle J. F., Wilkinson D. A. Lecithin bilayers. Density measurement and molecular interactions. Biophys J. 1978 Aug;23(2):159–175. doi: 10.1016/S0006-3495(78)85441-1. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Petersen N. O., Chan S. I. More on the motional state of lipid bilayer membranes: interpretation of order parameters obtained from nuclear magnetic resonance experiments. Biochemistry. 1977 Jun 14;16(12):2657–2667. doi: 10.1021/bi00631a012. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Rand R. P., Parsegian V. A. Mimicry and mechanism in phospholipid models of membrane fusion. Annu Rev Physiol. 1986;48:201–212. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ph.48.030186.001221. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Scott H. L., Kalaskar S. Lipid chains and cholesterol in model membranes: a Monte Carlo Study. Biochemistry. 1989 May 2;28(9):3687–3691. doi: 10.1021/bi00435a010. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Seelig A., Seelig J. The dynamic structure of fatty acyl chains in a phospholipid bilayer measured by deuterium magnetic resonance. Biochemistry. 1974 Nov 5;13(23):4839–4845. doi: 10.1021/bi00720a024. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Speyer J. B., Weber R. T., Das Gupta S. K., Griffin R. G. Anisotropic 2H NMR spin-lattice relaxation in L alpha-phase cerebroside bilayers. Biochemistry. 1989 Dec 12;28(25):9569–9574. doi: 10.1021/bi00451a003. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Zaccai G., Büldt G., Seelig A., Seelig J. Neutron diffraction studies on phosphatidylcholine model membranes. II. Chain conformation and segmental disorder. J Mol Biol. 1979 Nov 15;134(4):693–706. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(79)90480-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America are provided here courtesy of National Academy of Sciences

RESOURCES