Phospholipid tubelets.

A novel electron microscopy specimen protocol shows that the presumed phospholipid bilayer membrane ribbons that wind helically to form the cylinders known as "tubules" are actually flattened tubes. These flattened tubes are alternatively found with a helical twist about the tube's long axis or occasionally flat with no winding or twist. Flat, cylindrically wound and axially twisted segments are routinely found along a single tube's length, and at the helically wound and axially twisted segment junctions, the chiral sense of the structure often, but not always, changes chiral sense.

Chiral tubule self-assembly from an achiral diynoic lipid.

Tubules possessing microm-scale chiral substructure self-assemble from an achiral isomer of the tubule-forming diynoic phosphatidylcholine, 1,2-bis(10,12-tricosadiynoyl)sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine [DC(8,9)PC], showing that molecular chirality is not essential for tubule formation. CD spectroscopy shows that these structures' helical sense of handedness instead originates in a spontaneous cooperative chiral symmetry-breaking process. We conclude that the chiral symmetry-breaking must originate in the unusual feature common to the chiral and achiral tubule-forming molecules, the diynes centered in their hydrocarbon tails.

Phospholipid/protein cones.

The presence of protein in tubule-forming solutions of the diacetylenic phospholipid 1,2-bis(10,12-tricosadiynoyl)-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine results in the formation of hollow cones rather than the expected hollow cylinders. Differential phase-contrast video microscopy reveals that cones grow from proteinaceous nodules in a fashion similar to cylindrical tubule growth from spherical vesicles. Spatially resolved electron-beam energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy shows the protein to be associated with the cone wall.

Phosphonate lipid tubules II.

We describe a new chiral tubule-forming lipid in which the C-O-P phosphoryl linkage of the archetypal tubule-forming molecule, 1,2-bis(10,12-tricosadiynoyl)-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, "DC(8,9)PC", is replaced by a C-P linkage. Tubule formation with this phosphonate analogue proceeds under the same mild conditions as with DC(8,9)PC and produces similar yields, but synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering, atomic force microscopy, and optical microscopy show the new tubules to have diameters 1.94 times as great, to be significantly shorter, and to be thinner-walled.