Determination of lipid phase transition temperatures in hybrid bilayer membranes

The main gel-to-liquid-crystal (LC) phase transition temperature, T-m, of the lipid monolayer in hybrid bilayer membranes (HBMs) was investigated using vibrational sum frequency spectroscopy (VSFS). In the gel phase, the acyl chains of the lipid molecules assume an ordered, all-trans configuration, whereas in the LC phase, the acyl chains exhibit a significant number of disordered gauche conformers. VSFS has unique sensitivity to the order/disorder transitions in the acyl chains and was used to determine T-m for a series of saturated phosphatidylcholine lipids on octadecanethiolate self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). The values obtained for T-m for all lipids studied are significantly higher than for the corresponding lipids in vesicles in solution. Additionally, the transition widths are broader for the lipids in HBMs. The underlying SAM clearly influences the phase behavior of the overlying lipid monolayer.