Figure 6
Effect of increased tail unsaturation on lipid molecular shape. The additional cis double bond in the linoleoyl tails induces a kink in the tails that is not readily offset by gauche conformations of single bonds in the chain. The linoleoyl tails therefore take up a greater lateral area. This changes the molecular shape, resulting in a different spontaneous curvature (C0 < 0) and thinning of the bilayer. The 3D chemical structures were rendered using RasTop 2.2 (https://www.geneinfinity.org/rastop/).
