Composition of octyl glucoside-phosphatidylcholine mixed micelles.

The composition of mixed micelles of egg phosphatidylcholine (PC) and octyl glucoside was studied by a novel technique based on measuring resonance energy-transfer efficiency between two fluorescent lipid probes present in trace amounts. Equations were derived for calculating the stoichiometry of the composition of mixed micelles from the energy-transfer measurements. These were applied to determining the average number of lipid molecules in the octyl glucoside-egg PC mixed micelle as a function of detergent concentration. The average number of detergent molecules in these mixed micelles was independent of lipid concentration in the range studied (0-500 microM). The dependence of mixed micelle stoichiometry on the concentration of aqueous (monomeric) octyl glucoside is consistent with the assumptions of ideal mixing of the two amphiphiles in the mixed micelles and that mixed micelles can be treated as a distinct phase.