Temperature dependence of the interaction of cholate and deoxycholate with fluid model membranes and their solubilization into mixed micelles

The interaction of bile salts with model membranes composed of soybean phosphatidylcholine (SPC) and synthetic 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC) was investigated using high sensitivity isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). The partitioning and incorporation of the bile salts sodium cholate (NaC) and sodium deoxycholate (NaDC) from an aqueous phase (pure water or 0.1 M NaCl) into fluid bilayer vesicles was studied as a function of temperature and ionic strength. The thermodynamic parameters of partitioning were determined with a model taking electrostatic interactions into account. In addition, the solubilization of SPC and POPC vesicles with NaC and NaDC as a function of temperature was also studied by ITC and the phase diagrams for the vesicle to micelle transition at two different temperatures were established. Unsaturated phospholipids require higher amounts of detergent to be transformed into micelles compared to saturated phospholipids. In addition, the width of the coexistence region of mixed micelles and mixed vesicles is larger for phosphatidylcholines with unsaturated chains. A comparison of NaDC with NaC shows the higher solubilization effectiveness of NaDC in agreement with its lower cmc. Furthermore, increasing the ionic strength decreases the amount of bile salt necessary for the formation of mixed micelles, which is also expected from the decrease of the cmc with ionic strength due to the shielding of the charges of the bile salts.