Does vitamin E behave like cholesterol? An examination of vitamin E's effects on phospholipid membrane structure and dynamics through sum-frequency vibrational spectroscopy.

Vitamin E (VE) has historically been described as an anti-oxidant and its roles in radical species scavenging and nutrition are well studied. VE has been proposed to have secondary roles within the membrane but these roles are not as well characterized, with contradictory results emerging throughout the literature. Due to similar structural motifs, comparisons between VE and cholesterol (CHO), another membrane component, have been commonly made.