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Disposition of ceramide in model lipid membranes determined by neutron diffraction.

ABSTRACT: The lipid matrix present in the uppermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum, plays a crucial role in the skin barrier function. The lipids are organized into two lamellar phases. To gain more insight into the molecular organization of one of these lamellar phases, we performed neutron diffraction studies. In the diffraction pattern, five diffraction orders were observed attributed to a lamellar phase with a repeat distance of 5.4 nm. Using contrast variation, the scattering length density profile could be calculated showing a typical bilayer arrangement. To obtain information on the arrangement of ceramides in the unit cell, a mixture that included a partly deuterated ceramide was also examined. The scattering length density profile of the 5.4-nm phase containing this deuterated ceramide demonstrated a symmetric arrangement of the ceramides with interdigitating acyl chains in the center of the unit cell.

SUBMITTER: Groen D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3059577 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Disposition of ceramide in model lipid membranes determined by neutron diffraction.

Groen D D Gooris G S GS Barlow D J DJ Lawrence M J MJ van Mechelen J B JB Demé B B Bouwstra J A JA

Biophysical journal 20110301 6

The lipid matrix present in the uppermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum, plays a crucial role in the skin barrier function. The lipids are organized into two lamellar phases. To gain more insight into the molecular organization of one of these lamellar phases, we performed neutron diffraction studies. In the diffraction pattern, five diffraction orders were observed attributed to a lamellar phase with a repeat distance of 5.4 nm. Using contrast variation, the scattering length density p ...[more]

PMID: 21402030

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Project description:We report high-pressure neutron powder diffraction measurements of the most hydrated phase in the MgSO4–H2O system, magnesium sulfate undecahydrate, including an analysis of the elastic strain tensor and observations concerning phase changes that occur at high pressure. We have collected neutron powder diffraction data from MgSO4·11D2O (the deuterated analogue of meridianiite), a highly hydrated sulfate salt that is thought to be a candidate rock-forming mineral in some icy satellites of the outer solar system. Our measurements, made using the PEARL/HiPr and OSIRIS instruments at the ISIS neutron spallation source, covered the range 0.1 < P < 800?MPa and 150 < T < 280?K. The refined unit-cell volumes as a function of P and T are parameterized in the form of a Murnaghan integrated linear equation of state having a zero-pressure volume V0 = 706.23?(8)?Å3, zero-pressure bulk modulus K0 = 19.9?(4)?GPa and its first pressure derivative, K? = 9?(1). The structure’s compressibility is highly anisotropic, as expected, with the three principal directions of the unit-strain tensor having compressibilities of 9.6?×?10?3, 3.4?×?10?2 and 3.4?×?10?3 GPa?1, the most compressible direction being perpendicular to the long axis of a discrete hexadecameric water cluster, (D2O)16. At high pressure we observed two different phase transitions. First, warming of MgSO4·11D2O at 545?MPa resulted in a change in the diffraction pattern at 275?K consistent with partial (peritectic) melting; quasielastic neutron spectra collected simultaneously evince the onset of the reorientational motion of D2O molecules with characteristic time-scales of 20–30?ps, longer than those found in bulk liquid water at the same temperature and commensurate with the lifetime of solvent-separated ion pairs in aqueous MgSO4. Second, at ??0.9?GPa, 240?K, MgSO4·11D2O decomposed into high-pressure water ice phase VI and MgSO4·9D2O, a recently discovered phase that has hitherto only been formed at ambient pressure by quenching small droplets of MgSO4(aq) in liquid nitrogen. The fate of the high-pressure enneahydrate on further compression and warming is not clear from the neutron diffraction data, but its occurrence indicates that it may also be a rock-forming mineral in the deep mantles of large icy satellites.

Dataset Information

Disposition of ceramide in model lipid membranes determined by neutron diffraction.

Publications

Disposition of ceramide in model lipid membranes determined by neutron diffraction.

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