Saturation and Flexibility

[osraimingover40]

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I had always thought unsaturation (pi bonds/double bonds/sp2s) mean't more flexibility due to the additional kink. That's why unsaturated fatty acids are preferred in membranes, right?

I was doing Passage #1 in BR OCHEM and one of the answers had said that "The female Tsetse sex hormone is an (saturated) aliphatic alkane so it has high flexibility."

This is wrong then? correct? It would have low flexibility?

 

[asecondtolife]

I was taught that saturated fats are more flexible because the bonds can freely rotate between conformations. Unsaturated fats, with their double bonds, don't allow free rotation from one conformation to another and are therefore more "rigid." I don't know about membranes in eukaryotes, but bacteria can change the saturation of their membranes based on their environmental conditions 😳

A common confusion for the unsaturated/saturated fat thing is that unsaturated fats exist as liquids (oil) at room temp, while saturated fats exist as solids. People take this to mean that unsaturated fats are more "flexible," but the physical state of the fatty acids depends on their ability to pack together and not on their flexibility. 🙂

Hope this helped a bit.

 

[SN2ed]

Thread closed. These types of questions belong in the Study Q&A forum.