The Effect of Cholesterol on Membrane Chain-Chain Packing

Membrane structure is very important issue for cell. Membrane is not only the “wall” for protecting cell but also the interface for exchanging signal, ions and molecules. Many evidences show that membrane protein will fold to functional structure by associating with suitable membrane structure. Lipid chain-chain packing is one of important structures and will affect membrane thickness, lipid lateral diffusion and membrane domain formation. We will use grazing incident X-ray diffraction to probe lipid chain-chain packing. The 12keV X-ray light source in BL13A beam line of NSRRC and home-made humidity-temperature controlled chamber will be applied in the measurements. Cholesterol will be used to interact with model membrane to study their effect on chain-chain packing.