A calorimetric study of the thermotropic behaviour of 1,2-dipentadecylmethylidene phospholipids.

Differential scanning calorimetry was used to study the thermotropic behaviour of 1,2-dipentadecylmethylidene phospholipids with various head groups. The structural variation in the glycerol backbone region leads to a strong restriction of conformational freedom for the first two methylene segments of the chains, so that dipentadecylmethylidene phospholipids show lower transition temperatures, lower enthalpies and lower cooperativity of the transition from the gel to the liquid crystalline phase. The extreme chemical stability of these lipids in the alkaline pH region enables investigations of phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidic acid dispersions at high pH values. Both phospholipids show a decrease in the transition temperature and in the transition enthalpy as they become singly and doubly charged, respectively. A complex behaviour of the transition enthalpy of doubly charged 1,2-dipentadecylmethylidene phosphatidic acid was observed when the NaCl concentration of the dispersion was increased.