Novel chelate-induced magnetic alignment of biological membranes

A phospholipid chelate complexed with ytterbium (DMPE-DTPA:Yb3+) is shown to be readily incorporated into a model membrane system, which may then be aligned in a magnetic field such that the average bilayer normal lies along the field. This so-called positively ordered smectic phase, whose lipids consist of less than 1% DMPE-DTPA:Yb3+, is ideally suited to structural studies of membrane proteins by solid-state NMR, low-angle diffraction, and spectroscopic techniques that require oriented samples. The chelate, 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid, which strongly binds the lanthanide ions and serves to orient the membrane in a magnetic field, prevents direct lanthanide-protein interactions and significantly reduces paramagnetic shifts and line broadening. Similar low-spin lanthanide chelates may have applications in field-ordered solution NMR studies of water-soluble proteins and in the design of new magnetically aligned liquid crystalline phases.