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Updated: Sep 12, 2025

Biomembrane Fabrication by the Solvent-assisted Lipid Bilayer SALB Method
Published on: December 1, 2015
Two phase coexistence in ternary mixtures of saturated and polyunsaturated phosphatidylcholines with cholesterol
1Department of Physics, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Rd. East, Guelph, N1G 2W1, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract:
Combining 2H and 14N nuclear magnetic resonance measurements on ternary lipid/cholesterol mixtures it is possible to quantitate the phase separation into coexisting ℓo and ℓd domains using a single sample whose composition is within the two phase region. Mixtures of each of the unsaturated phospholipids dioleoyl phosphatidylcholine, dilinoleoyl phosphatidylcholine and dilinolenoyl phosphatidylcholine with the saturated dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine and cholesterol all exhibit ℓo and ℓd phase coexistence over a substantial range of compositions and temperatures. A higher degree of unsaturation broadens the temperature range of two phase coexistence and results in the ℓd phase domains actually being significantly more 'fluid' at lower temperatures than they are at higher temperatures.
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