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Lipid bilayers are large enough structures to have some of the mechanical properties of liquids or solids. The area compression modulus K a, bending modulus K b, and edge energy , can be used to describe them. Solid lipid bilayers also have a shear modulus, but like any liquid, the shear modulus is zero for fluid bilayers. These mechanical ...
The solid phase is commonly referred to as a “gel” phase. All lipids have a characteristic temperature at which they undergo a transition from the gel to liquid phase. In both phases the lipid molecules are constrained to the two dimensional plane of the membrane, but in liquid phase bilayers the molecules diffuse freely within this plane.
In biology, membrane fluidity refers to the viscosity of the lipid bilayer of a cell membrane or a synthetic lipid membrane. Lipid packing can influence the fluidity of the membrane. Viscosity of the membrane can affect the rotation and diffusion of proteins and other bio-molecules within the membrane, there-by affecting the functions of these ...
It is defined as the event where two lipid bilayers approach each other and then merge to form a single continuous structure. [1] In living beings, cells are made of an outer coat made of lipid bilayers; which then cause fusion to take place in events such as fertilization, embryogenesis and even infections by various types of bacteria and ...
Lipid bilayer budding is a commonplace phenomenon in living cells and relates to the transport of metabolites in the form of vesicles. During this process, a lipid bilayer is subject to internal hydrostatic stresses, in combination with strain restrictions along a bilayer surface, this can lead to elongation of areas of the lipid bilayer by ...
Membrane lipids are a group of compounds (structurally similar to fats and oils) which form the lipid bilayer of the cell membrane. The three major classes of membrane lipids are phospholipids, glycolipids, and cholesterol. Lipids are amphiphilic: they have one end that is soluble in water ('polar') and an ending that is soluble in fat ...
Lipid molecules in the HII phase pack inversely to the packing observed in the hexagonal I phase described above. This phase has the polar head groups on the inside and the hydrophobic, hydrocarbon tails on the outside in solution. The packing ratio for this phase is larger than one, [1] which is synonymous with an inverse cone packing.
Lipid bilayer characterization is the use of various optical, chemical and physical probing methods to study the properties of lipid bilayers. Many of these techniques are elaborate and require expensive equipment because the fundamental nature of the lipid bilayer makes it a very difficult structure to study. An individual bilayer, since it is ...