Thermodynamics Research Center / ThermoML | Thermochimica Acta

ABSTRACT

In this paper, a homologous series of N-acyltyramine (NATA) which is biosynthetic precursor for neu-roactive lipids, N-acyldopamine have been synthesized and their thermotropic phase transitions werecharacterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). NATA undergoes a major sharp endothermictransition with the melting point of the hydrated samples occurs considerably at lower temperature com-pared to the dry samples. Thermodynamic parameters, transition enthalpy ( Ht) and transition entropy( St), associated with the chain-melting phase transitions depends linearly on the number of carbonatoms. The contributions of each methylene unit to the transition enthalpy and entropy and the endcontributions arising from the head group and the terminal group was determined and reported. Theseresults are very important to understand the thermodynamics basis of NATA phase properties in othermembrane lipids.