Effects of cholesterol on bilayers with various degrees of unsaturation of their phospholipid tails under mechanical stress

Cholesterol is one of the essential components of the cell membrane. It has a significant influence on various mechanical properties of biomembranes, such as fluidity and elasticity, which have attracted much attention. It is also well known that the concentration of cholesterol affects the mechanical strength of cell membranes. In this paper, we aim to explore the influence of the degree of unsaturation of phospholipid tails on the concentration-effect of cholesterol. Three different phospholipids (DPPC, DIPC and DAPC) were selected as the respective main components of the bilayers and several concentrations of cholesterol were also added to the systems. Our coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations show that as the cholesterol concentration increases, the saturated phospholipid bilayer is first strengthened, by increasing the rupture tension from 68.9 to 110 mN m(−1), and then weakened. The non-monotonic concentration-effect gradually decreases as the degree of unsaturation of the phospholipid tails increases, and in particular, the mechanical strength of the DAPC bilayer hardly changes. The results suggest that cholesterol does not influence a bilayer composed of highly unsaturated phospholipids. Furthermore, lateral density distributions reveal that the distribution of cholesterol in the bilayer is related to the carbon tail unsaturation of the phospholipids.