DSC and Raman studies of the side chain length effect of ubiquinones on the thermotropic phase behavior of liposomes

Differential scanning calorimetry and Raman spectroscopy have been used to examine the effects of ubiquinones (UQn) on the thermotropic phase behavior of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) in multilamellar vesicles, for UQ/DPPC molar ratios ranging from 0.01 to 0.1. The influence of the side chain length has been investigated by comparing the effect of a series of UQ with 2 (UQ2), 4 (UQ4), 6 (UQ6) and 10 isoprene units (UQ10). In the presence of increasing amount of UQ2 or UQ4, concomitant shift of the gel to liquid crystalline phase transition towards lower temperatures and vanishing of the pretransition are observed. Short-chain ubiquinones are thus inserted parallel to phospholipid chains, their benzoquinone ring being close to the DPPC polar headgroups. In addition, broadening and skewing of the main transition peak support the fact that UQ2 and UQ4 are laterally self-organized in highly concentrated regions located at the boundary of lipid domains. The lipid thermotropic behavior is not affected by the presence of other analogues of the series, UQ6 and UQ10. They remain homogeneously dispersed within the midplane of the phospholipid bilayer. Such a chain length dependence on the location and the organization of ubiquinones analogues may be correlated with their biological activities in biomembranes.