Book dossier

Handbook of lipid bilayers

by Derek Marsh

"Now in its second edition, the Handbook of Lipid Bilayers is a groundbreaking work that remains the fields definitive text and only comprehensive source for primary physicochemical data relating to phospholipid bilayers. Along with basic thermodynamic data, coverage includes both dynamic and structural properties of phospholipid bilayers. It is an indispensable reference for users of bilayer model membranes and liposome delivery systems and for those interested in the biophysics of membrane structure.Each chapter in the second edition contains considerable amounts of explanation and elaboration, including, in many cases, extensive analysis of structural connections between the data. New in the Second Edition:Chapters on crystal structures of phospholipids include new structures and more comprehensive data on bond lengths, bond angles, and torsion angles and all coordinates are Wide-angle data is indexed whenever possible to characterize chain-packing modes in gel and crystalline lamellar phases. Low-angle data are analyzed in terms of the lipid and water thicknesses Headgroup separations in electron density profiles for phospholipids are included, and a separate section is devoted to the in-depth analysis of electron density profiles that provides the most detailed structural information on fluid lamellar phases. Phase diagrams of phospholipid mixtures are vastly expanded and have been redrawn in standardized format to aid intercomparison. Cholesterol, including ternary systems, is now featured. New sections on titration calorimetry, and much extended data on the temperature dependence of transfer rates. The greatly expanded chapter on bilayer bilayer interactions features new and detailed information on the components of interbilayer pressures"--Provided by publisher. "Preface to the Second Edition It is now more than 20 years since publication of the first edition, which has been out of print for an unjustifiably long period. At the time of preparing the original edition, the available data were far fewer and the task of assembly by a single individual seemed almost possible. The situation is now utterly different - daunting to say the very least - and I hope that I have been able to do justice to the many workers in the field. The format of the original edition has been retained, but all sections containing data have been updated and expanded - many of them vastly. This is true of the part on glycolipids, where previously no data was available in some categories, as well as of the phospholipid part. A new feature, included on recommendation of the reviewers, is that the introductory section of each chapter contains considerably more explanation and elaboration. Previously this served simply to define the quantities tabulated; now more description is given and, in many cases, extensive analysis of structural connections between the data is given. The latter, for the most part, was not explicit in the original publications and consequently I have subjected much of the analysis to a series of reviews submitted to refereed journals. These are referenced in the appropriate chapters and some of them are listed at the end of this preface. In the chapters on crystal structures of phospholipids, as well as new structures and more comprehensive data on bond lengths, bond angles and torsion angles, all coordinates are now given in normal X,Y,Z coordinates, and not just in the original (frequently oblique) fractional crystal coordinates. This should make the data far more accessible to the non-crystallographer"--Provided by publisher.