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Effects of N,N-dimethyl-N-alkylamine-N-oxides on DOPC bilayers in unilamellar vesicles: small-angle neutron scattering study

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Abstract

Small-angle neutron scattering data were collected from aqueous dispersions of unilamellar vesicles (ULVs) consisting of mixtures of 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphatidylcholine and a homologous series of N,N-dimethyl-N-alkylamine-N-oxides (CnNO, n = 12, 14, 16, and 18, where n is the number of carbon atoms in the alkyl chain). A modeling approach was applied to the neutron scattering curves to obtain the bilayer structural parameters. Particularly, the external 2H2O/H2O contrast variation technique was carried out on pure dioleoylphosphatidylcholine (DOPC) ULVs to determine the hydrophilic region thickness \( D_{\text{h}} \) = 9.8 ± 0.6 Å. Consequently, the hydrocarbon region thickness \( 2D_{\text{C}} \), the lateral bilayer area per one lipid molecule \( A \), and the number of water molecules located in the hydrophilic region per one lipid molecule \( N_{\text{W}} \) were obtained from single-contrast neutron scattering curves using the previously determined \( D_{\text{h}} \). The structural parameters were extracted as functions of \( r_{{{\text{C}}n{\text{NO}}}} \) (the CnNO:DOPC molar ratio) and n. The dependences \( A(r_{{{\text{C}}n{\text{NO}}}} ) \) provided the partial lateral areas of CnNOs (\( \bar{A}_{{{\text{C}}n{\text{NO}}}} \)) and DOPC (\( \bar{A}_{\text{DOPC}} \)) in bilayers. It was observed that the \( \bar{A}_{{{\text{C}}n{\text{NO}}}} \)’s were constant in the investigated interval of \( r_{{{\text{C}}n{\text{NO}}}} \) and for n = 12, 14, and 16 equal to 36.6 ± 0.4 Å2, while \( \bar{A}_{{{\text{C}}18{\text{NO}}}} \) increased to 39.4 ± 0.4 Å2. The bilayer hydrocarbon region thickness \( 2D_{\text{C}} \) decreased with intercalation of each CnNO. This effect increased with \( r_{{{\text{C}}n{\text{NO}}}} \) and decreased with increasing CnNO alkyl chain length. The intercalation of C18NO changed the \( 2D_{\text{C}} \) only slightly. To quantify the effect of CnNO intercalation into DOPC bilayers we fit the \( 2D_{\text{C}} (r_{{{\text{C}}n{\text{NO}}}} ) \) dependences with weighted linear approximations and acquired their slopes \( \Delta d \).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by JINR project 04-4-1069-2009/2014, by the VEGA 1/0159/11 and 1/1224/12 grants, and by the APVV-0212-10 grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Physics and Biophysics, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University, 842 48, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Michal Belička

  2. Department of Physical Chemistry of Drugs, Faculty of Pharmacy, Comenius University, Odbojárov 10, 832 32, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Michal Belička, Norbert Kučerka, Daniela Uhríková, Ferdinand Devínsky & Pavol Balgavý

  3. Chalk River Laboratories, Canadian Neutron Beam Center, Chalk River, ON, KOJ 1JO, Canada

    Norbert Kučerka

  4. Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980, Dubna, Moscow Region, Russia

    Akhmed Kh. Islamov & Alexander I. Kuklin

  5. Laboratory for Advanced Studies of Membrane Proteins, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, 141700, Dolgoprudny, Moscow Region, Russia

    Akhmed Kh. Islamov & Alexander I. Kuklin

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  1. Michal Belička
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Belička, M., Kučerka, N., Uhríková, D. et al. Effects of N,N-dimethyl-N-alkylamine-N-oxides on DOPC bilayers in unilamellar vesicles: small-angle neutron scattering study. Eur Biophys J 43, 179–189 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00249-014-0954-0

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