THE ROLE OF LONG-RANGE FORCES IN THE COHESION OF LIPOPROTEINS

Abstract

The various long-range forces which are effective between molecules in their electronic ground states are examined. Orders of magnitude are given for those forces which should occur in the interaction of lipide and protein chains. It is found that electrostatic forces should be responsible for bringing and holding together protein and lipide components, but London – Van der Waals dispersion forces are probably of paramount importance in maintaining the lipide chains together in micelles or double layers.Special attention is drawn to the dispersion forces and to the conditions under which these forces are locally additive; one can calculate accurate values of the dispersion energy of interaction between saturated hydrocarbon chains at short distances (a few angstroms apart) by adding all the bond–bond interactions. A general expression is given for the dispersion energy between two parallel and opposed chains built out of identical units, and numerical values are given for the case of closely packed hydrocarbon chains.The total attraction energy is extremely sensitive to the intermolecular distance. The role of this "distance-specificity" in interactions involving unsaturated fatty acid chains and its contribution to the stability of lipoproteins is briefly examined.