BR Bio Part II Cholesterol

[ahmed90]

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Hey if you goto page 76 question 65 in BR Bio Part II Section 6, there is a question regarding membrane fluidity and cholesterol. The correct answer they put up is that it increases fluidity. However, i've read in many other places that cholesterol decreases membrane fluidity. Other sources mention that the correlation between membrane fluidity and cholesterol is temperature dependent, yet this question makes no mention of temperature. However, the question does say this is under a high concentration of cholesterol in the plasma membrane, so i'm assuming that thats the main factor here. Can anyone clarify this?

 

[TieuBachHo]

I was googling other sources, and can aver your rationale. High conc. of cholesterols will disrupt the structural integrity of the membrane by saparating the bilayers preventing them from being crystalized. Thus, high conc. of cholesterols increase the membrane's fluidity.

Imagine this, you have a mesh of whatever, and you can only stuff certain amt of material to plug it up. Once you try to stuff excess amt of materical into it, it will tear up the mesh. LOL I don't know if this makes any sense to you.