Detection of lipid phase coexistence and lipid interactions in sphingomyelin/cholesterol membranes by ATR-FTIR spectroscopy.

The phase behavior of binary mixtures of egg sphingomyelin and cholesterol has been inspected by attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy in the amide I' band region of the spectrum. Because cholesterol does not have any major absorption bands in this region, effects seen in the spectra of mixtures of sphingomyelin and cholesterol can be attributed to the change in the lipid phase and to the interaction with cholesterol. It is shown that the temperature dependence of the overall bandwidth of the amide I' band displays a phase-specific behavior. In addition, it is observed that the amide I' band for a sample exhibiting phase coexistence can be described by a linear combination of the spectra of the individual lipid phases. Description of changes in the amide I' band shape and by that the study of possible hydrogen bonding interactions of sphingomyelin with cholesterol was assisted by the use of curve fitting. It turns out that the presence of hydrogen bonding between hydroxyl group of cholesterol and carbonyl group of sphingomyelin is obscured by the complexity of different possible hydrogen bonding and coupling between the N-H (N-D) and the CO group vibrations.