Figure 3.

Tail order parameters for the sn-1 (top panel) and sn-2 (bottom panel) chains of DPPC for all cholesterol concentrations studied. Starting from a pure DPPC bilayer, increasing the cholesterol content causes the entire tail to become significantly more ordered. At 20–30% cholesterol content, the ordering plateaus for the upper carbon atoms but begins to decrease for carbon atoms near the bilayer center. The dotted line in the bottom panel shows the experimental results of (39). To see this figure in color, go online.