title: Distribution of 5-doxylstearic acid in the membranes of mammalian cells.
abstract: Concentration-dependent spin broadening of ESR spectra of the nitroxide 5-doxylstearic acid has been used to evaluate the distribution of 5-doxylstearic acid in the membranes of intact mouse thymus-bone marrow (TB) and Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. TB cells, CHO cells, erythrocytes, and isolated plasma membranes from CHO cells were labelled with 5-doxylstearic acid and the peak to peak linewidths of the central line of the resulting ESR spectra were measured. The measured line widths were linearly dependent on the amount of 5-doxylstearic acid incorporated into the sample over the range of 0-0.18 mol nitroxide per mol lipid. In erythrocytes, the relationship between linewidths approximated a linear function at lower concentrations of 5-doxylstearic acid, up to 0.07 mol nitroxide per mol lipid. The amount of broadening of the central line for a given amount of 5-doxylstearic acid was far less for intact cells than for either erythrocytes or plasma membrane, indicating that the 5-doxylstearic acid samples a much larger lipid pool in the intact cells. With the broad assumption that the mobility of the 5-doxylstearic acid is similar in different membranes, the size of the lipid pool sampled by 5-doxylstearic acid is approximately equal to the total cellular lipid in intact cells. If a given concentration of 5-doxylstearic acid sampled only the plasma membrane of TB or CHO cells, we would expect to see a linewidth corresponding to a 12-20-fold greater local concentration of 5-doxylstearic acid than was observed, since the plasma membranes of CHO and TB cells represent only 5-8 percent of the total cellular lipid. Therefore, the 5-doxylstearic acid must distribute into most or all cellular membranes of intact cells and is not localized in the plasma membrane alone.
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois College of Medicine, Urbana.
authors.forename: D O
authors.initials: DO
authors.lastname: Nettleton
authors.forename: P D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Morse
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Dobrucki
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Swartz
authors.forename: N J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Dodd
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000032:analysis*; D006224:Cricetinae; D003497:Cyclic N-Oxides / Q000493:pharmacokinetics*; D004578:Electron Spin Resonance Spectroscopy; D008322:Mammals; D051379:Mice
chemical_list: D003497:Cyclic N-Oxides; C005072:5-doxylstearic acid