Issue 9, 2017

High-resolution structure of coexisting nanoscopic and microscopic lipid domains

Abstract

We studied coexisting micro- and nanoscopic liquid-ordered/liquid-disordered domains in fully hydrated multilamellar vesicles using small-angle X-ray scattering. Large domains exhibited long-range out-of-plane positional correlations of like domains, consistent with previous reports. In contrast, such correlations were absent in nanoscopic domains. Advancing a global analysis of the in situ data allowed us to gain a deep insight into the structural and elastic properties of the coexisting domains, including the partitioning of cholesterol in each domain. In agreement with a previous report, we found that the thickness mismatch between ordered and disordered domains decreased for nanoscopic domains. At the same time, we found also the lipid packing mismatch to be decreased for nano-domains, mainly due to the liquid-disordered domains becoming more densely packed when decreasing their size.

Graphical abstract: High-resolution structure of coexisting nanoscopic and microscopic lipid domains

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 Dec 2016
Accepted
29 Jan 2017
First published
30 Jan 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Soft Matter, 2017,13, 1823-1833

High-resolution structure of coexisting nanoscopic and microscopic lipid domains

M. Belička, A. Weitzer and G. Pabst, Soft Matter, 2017, 13, 1823 DOI: 10.1039/C6SM02727J

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