Abstract
IT is well known that the addition of cholesterol to artificial lipid membranes decreases their permeability. Most of the studies on artificial systems have been performed on liposomes1–4, whereas the effect of the cholesterol on planar lipid bilayers was investigated on water transport only. In particular Finkelstein and Cass5 found that addition of cholesterol to membrane of lecithin resulted in a decrease of water permeability. In the present work we studied the effect of cholesterol addition on the non-electrolyte permeability of lecithin planar membranes. The artificial membranes were formed with egg lecithin dissolved in decane to form a 0.5% solution. Lecithin was extracted from egg yolks6 and purified by alumina chromatography. Cholesterol, twice crystallised, was added to lecithin solution to obtain cholesterol–lecithin molar ratios of 1:1 or 2:1.
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