Depletion with Cyclodextrin Reveals Two Populations of Cholesterol in Model Lipid Membranes.

ABSTRACT: Recent results provide evidence that cholesterol is highly accessible for removal from both cell and model membranes above a threshold concentration that varies with membrane composition. Here we measured the rate at which methyl-β-cyclodextrin depletes cholesterol from a supported lipid bilayer as a function of cholesterol mole fraction. We formed supported bilayers from two-component mixtures of cholesterol and a PC (phosphatidylcholine) lipid, and we directly visualized the rate of decrease in area of the bilayers with fluorescence microscopy. Our technique yields the accessibility of cholesterol over a wide range of concentrations (30-66 mol %) for many individual bilayers, enabling fast acquisition of replicate data. We found that the bilayers contain two populations of cholesterol, o

SUBMITTER: Litz JP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4744159 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature