Calorimetric studies of fully hydrated phosphatidylcholines with highly asymmetric acyl chains.

We have semi-synthesized 52 molecular species of saturated diacyl mixed-chain phosphatidylcholines. All 52 phosphatidylcholine molecules are highly asymmetrical with delta C/CL values in the range of 0.43-0.63. The aqueous dispersions of these phosphatidylcholines have been studied by the high-resolution differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) technique. Upon heating, the lipid dispersions prepared individually from these 52 phosphatidylcholines all exhibit a sharp, single, endothermic peak at a characteristic temperature or Tm, implying that the self-assembled lipid molecules in excess water undergo the mixed interdigitated gel to the liquid-crystalline phase transition. The Tm values obtained from aqueous lipid dispersions prepared from these mixed-chain phospholipids have been analyzed based on the molecular packing model of the mixed interdigitated bilayer, and a linear relationship between the Tm and (delta C)-1 for various phospholipids at a constant value of delta is observed. Based on these linear relationships, empirical equations are derived to predict the Tm values for highly asymmetrical mixed-chain phosphatidylcholines with delta C/CL values in the range of 0.43-0.63. The predictive power of these empirical equations is shown to be very good, since a comparison between the predicted and the experimental data indicates that the largest relative error in Kelvin is only 0.4%. A table containing 81 predicted Tm values for highly asymmetrical mixed-chain phosphatidylcholines is presented. The definitions of the various structural parameters such as delta C, CL, delta C/CL and delta are given in the text.