Stabilization of bilayer structure for unsaturated phosphatidylethanolamines by detergents

The structural preferences of mixed lipid systems containing egg yolk or $\text{18:1}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>c</mtext>}}\text{18:1}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>c</mtext>}}$ phosphatidylethanolamine and representative detergents (Triton X-100, deoxycholate, octylglucoside and lyso-phosphatidylcholine) have been examined. It is shown that all these detergents exhibit an ability to stabilize a bilayer organization for the phosphatidylethanolamine at detergent to phosphatidylethanolamine molar ratios of 0.05 to 0.5, depending on the detergent and/or phosphatidylethanolamine species. These results are interpreted in terms of molecular shape, where the ‘inverted cone’ shape detergents combine in a complementary fashion with ‘cone shaped’ phosphatidylethanolamine to result in net bilayer structure.