Static and magic angle spinning P-31 NMR spectroscopy of two natural plasma membranes

Static and magic angle spinning P-31 NMR spectroscopy was used for the firs t time in natural plasma membranes from erythrocytes and skeletal muscle to study phospholipid arrangement and composition. Typical static powder-like spectra were obtained showing that phospholipids were in a bilayer arrange ment. Magic angle spinning narrowed spectra into two components. The first one corresponded to phosphatidylcholine and the second one to the other pho spholipids with intensities in agreement with the known phospholipid compos ition. These findings show that NMR data previously acquired using model me mbranes can be transposed to studies on phospholipids in their natural envi ronment. (C) 1999 Federation of European Biochemical Societies.