n-Alcohol Length Governs Shift in Lo-Ld Mixing Temperatures in Synthetic and Cell-Derived Membranes (Biophysical Journal)

A persistent challenge in membrane biophysics has been to quantitatively predict how membrane physical properties change upon addition of new amphiphiles (e.g., lipids, alcohols, peptides, or proteins) in order to assess whether the changes are large enough to plausibly result in biological ramifications. Because of their roles as general anesthetics, n-alcohols are perhaps the best-studied amphiphiles of this class. When n-alcohols are added to model and cell membranes, changes in membrane parameters tend to be modest.