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Updated: Jun 13, 2026

Biomembrane Fabrication by the Solvent-assisted Lipid Bilayer (SALB) Method
Published on: December 1, 2015
Molecular and component volumes of saturated n-alkanols in DOPC+DOPS bilayers
Mária Klacsová1, Peter Westh, Pavol Balgavý
1Department of Nuclear Physics and Biophysics, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University, SK-842 48 Bratislava, Slovakia. klacsova@fpharm.uniba.sk
Abstract:
The volumetric properties of fluid bilayers consisting of dioleoylphosphatidylcholine (DOPC, 96wt%) and dioleoylphosphatidylserine (DOPS, 4wt%) with incorporated saturated n-alkanols (CnOH, n=10-16 is the even number of carbons in alkyl chain) were studied by vibrating tube densitometry. The mixing of DOPC and DOPS was found to be ideal and the molecular volumes of pure lipids V(DOPC) and V(DOPS) are additive in mixed bilayers. The increase of V(DOPS) with temperature was steeper than that of V(DOPC) as quantified by significantly higher coefficient of isobaric thermal expansivity gamma. This difference is supposed to be related to the high thermal expansivity of the serine headgroup. The molecular volumes of lipids and CnOH (V(CnOH)) in fluid DOPC+DOPS bilayers are constant and additive within error limits for n=12 and 16 and for the CnOH mole fractions in the lipid bilayer x(AL)
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