A picosecond fluorescence study of the cone angle of the wobbling motion of rod-like fluorophore in lipid bilayers

✍ Scribed by Tsunehisa Araiso; Tomiyasu Koyama

• Book ID: 103040207
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 225 KB
• Volume: 50
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0009-3084
• DOI: 10.1016/0009-3084(89)90033-9

✦ Synopsis

To clarify the physical significance of the cone angle for the wobbling motion of rod-like fluorophores in lipid bilayers, the wobbling motion of 1,6-diphenyl-l,3,5-hexatriene (DPH) and 1,4-diphenyl-l,3-butadiene (DPB) in phospholipid bilayers was studied by the fluorescence anisotropy technique in the picosecond region. Although these two fluorophores have different molecular lengths (17.5 A for DPH and 15.0 A for DPB), the cone angle of their wobbling motion was similar. This fact indicates that the cone angle for the wobbling motion of a rod-like fluorophore is determined more by the angular fluctuation of phospholipid molecules than the distance between them. In other words, the cone angle of the fluorophores measured from the time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy reflects the angle of the wobbling motion of the phospholipid molecules which surround them.