Spontaneous phosphatidylcholine transfer by collision between vesicles at high lipid concentration.

The transfer kinetics of [3H]-1-palmitoyl-2-oleoylphosphatidylcholine ([3H]POPC) and 1-palmitoyl-2-(pyrenyldecanoyl)phosphatidylcholine (PyrPC) from POPC small unilamellar vesicles were examined at 37 degrees C with lipid concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 40 mM. The rate of [3H]POPC transfer was determined by analyzing the movement of this lipid from charged donor to neutral acceptor vesicles. The rate of decay of the ratio of the intensity of pyrene excimer fluorescence to that from the pyrene monomer (E/M) upon addition of an unlabeled vesicle population to a population containing PyrPC was used to evaluate PyrPC transfer. For both lipids, the kinetic data are best described by a model which assumes that transfer occurs by vesicle collisions as well as by desorption from the bilayer. For [3H]POPC, the off-rate constant is 0.014 h-1 while the collisional rate constant is 0.0016 mM-1 h-1. PyrPC has an off-rate constant of 0.023 h-1 and a collisional constant of 0.0015 mM-1 h-1. These numbers were calculated by assuming the rate of interbilayer transfer to be negligible relative to that of intervesicular transfer. The large transfer fluxes in the high vesicle concentration range where the collisional process dominates suggest that spontaneous transfer may be of importance in membrane biogenesis.