Department of Chemistry, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 9, 1700, Fribourg, Switzerland.
National Centres of Competence in Research in Chemical Biology (Geneva) and Bio-inspired Materials, Fribourg, Switzerland.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2017 Jun 1;56(23):6515-6518. doi: 10.1002/anie.201701634. Epub 2017 Apr 26.
Phospholipid liposomes are archetypical self-assembled structures. To minimize the surface tension, the vesicles typically are spherical. Deciphering the bilayer code, the basic physical interactions between phospholipids would allow these molecules to be utilized as building blocks for novel, non-spherical structures. A 1,2-diamidophospholipid is presented that self-assembles into a cuboid structure. Owing to intermolecular hydrogen bonding, the bilayer membranes form an exceptionally tight subgel packing, leading to a maximization of flat structural elements and a minimization of any edges. These conditions are optimized in the geometrical structure of a cube. Surprisingly, the lateral surface pressure in the membrane is only one third of the value typically assumed for a bilayer membrane, questioning a long-standing rule-of-thumb.
磷脂脂质体是典型的自组装结构。为了最小化表面张力，囊泡通常呈球形。要破解双层代码，就需要了解磷脂之间的基本物理相互作用，这将使这些分子能够被用作新型非球形结构的构建块。本文介绍了一种能够自组装成长方体结构的 1,2-二酰胺磷脂。由于分子间氢键的存在，双层膜形成了一种异常紧密的亚凝胶态排列，从而最大限度地增加了平面结构元素的数量，并使任何边缘的数量最小化。这些条件在立方体的几何结构中得到了优化。令人惊讶的是，膜的侧向表面压力仅为通常假定的双层膜压力的三分之一，这对长期存在的经验法则提出了质疑。
