Abstract
Phosphatidylethanolamines (PEs) are a major kind of phospholipids found in biological membranes. They exist universally in the membranes from prokaryotes to eukaryotes and play an important roll in several membrane–related cellular processes. In this review, the thermotropic and barotropic phase transitions of bilayer membranes of various PEs with different molecular structure (chain length, chain unsaturation, chain linkage or head-group size) are systematically described by using the temperature–pressure phase diagrams and thermodynamic quantities of the phase transitions. Especially, the characteristic features of the PE bilayer membranes are explained by comparing the results with those of the corresponding phosphatidylcholine (PC) bilayer membranes.
