Magneto-orientation of lecithin crystals.

For the purpose of clarifying the magneto-orientation mechanism of several biological membrane systems, xylene-suspended thin-layered single crystals of lecithin, which is a major component of membranes, were subjected to magnetic fields of various strengths, and the orientation behavior of the crystals was analyzed. Lecithin crystals oriented in such a way that the directions of both the hydrocarbon chains and the phosphorylcholine group of the lecithin molecule were perpendicular to the magnetic field, suggesting that the crystals were diamagnetically biaxial. In contrast, hydrocarbon chains of phospholipids in many biological membranes are known to orient parallel to magnetic fields. The value of the volume diamagnetic susceptibility anisotropy, delta chi (i.e. the difference between susceptibilities parallel and perpendicular to the direction of the hydrocarbon chain in the lecithin crystals), estimated from the magneto-orientation behavior was about -9 X 10(-8) cgs. This is distinctly larger than that of vesicles of egg yolk lecithin measured by Boroske and Helfrich [Boroske, E. & Helfrich, W. (1978) Biophys. J. 24, 863-868] and also larger than that of single crystals of polyethylene, which was measured for comparison by the same technique as that used for lecithin in this study. The differences between these values of delta chi seem to result from the contribution of the polar head (i.e., the part of the lecithin molecule other than the two hydrocarbon chains), which is ordered, less ordered, or deleted in the respective cases above, although mainly from the contribution of the hydrocarbon chains, which are ordered in crystals and disordered in vesicles.