Determination of propagation and termination rate constants by using an extension to the rotating-sector method: Application to PLPC and DLPC bilayers

An extension to the rotating-sector method, which is usually applied to determine propagation and termination rate constants, is presented. The analytical treatment developed accounts for the simultaneous presence of a thermal initiation and of a first-order termination process. The applicability of the rotating-sector method is thus extended to situations where the rate in dark is higher than 5% of the rate in the presence of light, and more accurate estimates of the rate constants are obtained than before for any values of the “dark” rate. A previously published experiment on the application of the rotating-sector method to the autoxidation of styrene was reanalyzed. The estimates obtained for the propagation and the termination rate constants were 11% and 19% higher than the previous estimates, respectively. Finally, the improved rotating-sector method was also applied to the experimental determination of propagation (k_p) and termination rate constants (2×k_t) for both 1-palmitoyl-2-linoleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (PLPC) and 1,2-dilinoleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DLPC) liposomes. The following results were obtained at 37°C: for PLPC k_p =16.6 M⁻¹s⁻¹, and 2×k_t=1.27×10⁵ M⁻¹s⁻¹; for DLPC k_p(intermolecular)=(13.3–13.9) M⁻¹s⁻¹, k_p(intramolecular)=(4.7–5.4) s⁻¹, and 2×k_t=(0.99–1.05)×10⁵ M⁻¹s⁻¹. The separation of the intermolecular and intramolecular propagation rate constants for DLPC was made possible both by a special adaptation of the rotating-sector equations to substrates with two oxidizable moieties, and by the experimental determination of the ratio between partially oxidized DLPC molecules (only one acyl is oxidized) and fully oxidized DLPC molecules (both acyls are oxidized). © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Chem Kinet 30: 753–767, 1998