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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Realistic Membrane Modeling Using Complex Lipid Mixtures in Simulation Studies
Published on: September 1, 2023
Partial molecular volumes of lipids and cholesterol
Alexander I Greenwood1, Stephanie Tristram-Nagle, John F Nagle
1Biological Physics Group, Physics Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Abstract:
Volumetric measurements are reported for fully hydrated lipid/cholesterol bilayer mixtures using the neutral flotation method. Apparent specific volume data were obtained with the lipids DOPC, POPC and DMPC at T=30 degrees Celsius, DPPC at 50 degrees Celsius, and brain sphingomyelin (BSM) at 45 and 24 degrees Celsius for mole fractions of cholesterol x from 0 to 0.5. Unlike previous cholesterol mixture studies, we converted our raw data to partial molecular volume V(L) of the lipid and V(C) of the cholesterol. The partial molecular volumes were constant for POPC and DOPC as x was varied, but had sharp breaks for the other lipids at values of x(C) near 0.25+/-0.05. Results for x
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