Self Assembly of Lipid Molecules

If lipid, proteins, or some other amphiphilic molecules could be freely arranged in water, it would become possible to have them exhibit many characteristic properties, which are hidden when those molecules are separated from one another and only appear when they are gathered together, including cooperative phenomena, allosteric effects and so forth.

When normal phospholipids are dispersed in water, the uniformly dispersed state continues for a very long time. However, after a small amount of some specific lipid is added, only one gigantic aggregate of all the lipids present is gradually produced, and pure water remains. Those peculiar phenomena are now under research using microscopy, thermal analysis, x-ray diffraction and so on.

When a very small amount of specific phospholipid molecules is mixed with a well-dispersed, large amount of normal lipids, e.g., one molecule per one hundred molecules, all the lipids present in the system are incorporated spontaneously into only one gigantic, highly ordered aggregate.