Why are glycerophospholipids more soluble in water than triacylglycerols?

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Hello everyone. And welcome back. Our next question says, why do cholesterol molecules integrate more readily into membranes made of glycophos lipids compared with those made mostly of tri aal glycerol. So to think about this, we need to think about the chemical nature of each of these compounds. So cholesterol, so recall that cholesterol has this polar hydroxyl group, but then these nonpolar steroid rings. So in terms of integrating more rapidly into membranes made of glycerophosphate, when we think about the properties of these membrane molecules, glycerol phospholipids have that polar phosphate group or rather charged phosphate group. But then along with that polar phosphate group, it has a lawn polar chain. So just like the cholesterol, it has both polar and non polar regions. But when we look at tri ay glycerol, these are completely nonpolar molecules consisting of Glycerol backbone plus three fatty acid chains. So when we look at our cholesterol molecule which has both polar or nonpolar regions, it's going to integrate more readily into the membranes made of these also partially polar, partially nonpolar molecules as opposed to the completely nonpolar molecules. So again, our answer as to why cholesterol molecules integrate more readily into membranes made of glycophos lipids. Compared with those made mostly of tri ay glycerol has to do with the polarity with the chemical nature of cholesterol versus the other two molecule types. So as we know, cholesterol has a polar and nonpolar region which makes it integrate more readily to the polar and nonpolar glycerol fossil lipids as opposed to the completely nonpolar tr ao glycerol. See you in the next video.

Why are glycerophospholipids more soluble in water than triacylglycerols?

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Key Concepts

Glycerophospholipids Structure

Triacylglycerols Structure

Hydrophilicity vs. Hydrophobicity