Article pubs.acs.org/molecularpharmaceutics
Bicelles at Low Concentrations† Zhenwei Lu,‡ Wade D. Van Horn,‡ Jiang Chen,‡,§ Sijo Mathew,‡,§ Roy Zent,§,∥ and Charles R. Sanders*,‡ ‡
Department of Biochemistry, Center for Structural Biology, and §Department of MedicineDivision of Nephrology and Hypertension, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee 37232, United States ∥ Department of Medicine, Veterans Affairs Hospital, Nashville, Tennessee 37232, United States ABSTRACT: Bilayered detergent−lipid assemblies known as bicelles have been widely used as model membranes in structural biological studies and are being explored for wider applications, including pharmaceutical use. Most studies to date have involved the use of concentrated bicelle mixtures, such that little is known about the capacity of bicellar mixtures to be diluted without unwanted transitions to nonisotropic phases. Here, different detergent/lipid mixtures have been explored, leading to the identification of two different families of bicelles for which it is possible to lower the total amphiphile (detergent + lipid) concentration to
