Results of the investigation about the formation of the sphingomyelin (SM) micelles, which is one of the major phospholipids in the outer leaflet of membranes in the animal cells, are generalized in dependence on the preparation concentration, presence of another phospholipids at the low amounts, the exposure duration of solution and the medium polarity. The purity of commercial samples of SM was controlled by thin layer chromatography method. Non-linear dependence of the SM micelle size both on the preparation concentration and the exposure duration of solution was discovered by means of dynamic light scattering method under the self-aggregation in non-polar medium ( n -hexane). When the sum content of lysoforms and phosphatidylethanolanime decreases and the sum amount of the SM and phosphatidylcholine increases in the phospholipid composition of SM commercial preparations, the size of the SM micelles in hexane is found to be bigger. The SM aggregation in polar medium (0.8 % water-ethanol solution) results in the substantial diminution of the mean diameter of micelles as compared with than in hexane under equal concentrations of SM in the solution. Obviously, it is due to the disruption of an intramolecular H-bond between of OH-group of the sphingosine moiety and the phosphate ester oxygen of the head group in polar medium.
sphingomyelin, aggregation, medium polarity, thin layer chromatography, dynamic light scattering
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