A sucrose solutions application to the study of model biological membranes

Abstract

The small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering, time resolved X-ray small-angle and wide-angle diffraction coupled with differential scanning calorimetry have been applied to the investigation of unilamellar and multilamellar dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) vesicles in sucrose buffers with sucrose concentrations from 0 to 60%. Sucrose buffer decreased vesicle size and polydispersity and increased an X-ray contrast between phospholipid membrane and bulk solvent sufficiently. No influence of sucrose on the membrane thickness or mutual packing of hydrocarbon chains has been detected. The region of sucrose concentrations 30%-40% created the best experimental conditions for X-ray smallangle experiments with phospholipid vesicles.

Self-Assembly of Organic Nanomaterials and Biomaterials: The Bottom-Up Approach for Functional Nanostructures Formation and Advanced Applications

“…The formation of lipid nanostructured systems is controlled by soft interactions that regulate their colloidal stability in harsh bio-environments thus allowing a better control over their nanostructure [149][150][151][152]. For these reasons, lipid nanostructures are considered a versatile nano-platform in the field of nanomedicine and biotechnology [153,154].…”

Application of small-angle X-ray scattering to the characterization and quantification of the drug transport nanosystem based on the soybean phosphatidylcholine

“…The main difficulty in the SAXS application to characterize small unilamellar vesicles (ULV) is a weak contrast between ULVs and surrounding water. The density of electrons and hence contrast (difference between the electron density in the lipid bilayer and the solvent) can be increased by using solutions of disaccharides [10][11][12][13]. Say, the scattering intensity from dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) ULVs in the 40% (w/w) sucrose solution in water exceeds the intensity from the same ULVs in pure water about 100 times [10].…”

“…This makes it possible to vary contrast for X-rays. The methodology of contrast variation by disaccharides in the X-ray scattering experiment on ULVs opens up an opportunity to investigate the PTNS structure using the SAXS technique at synchrotron facilities [10][11][12][13].…”

The Small-Angle Neutron Scattering Data Analysis of the Phospholipid Transport Nanosystem Structure

“…The small-angle scattering of neutrons (SANS) and of X-rays (SAXS) is the well known experimental technique that uses the elastic neutron scattering and the X-ray scattering at small angles to study the structure of various substances at a scale of about 1-100 nm [1,2]. This technique is widely utilized for investigation of unilamellar phospholipid vesicles (ULVs) with different chemical compositions in large water excess, see [3,4,5,6] and references therein.…”