Does cholesterol alter the damaging effect of methanol on phospholipid bilayers?

The modulation by cholesterol (CHOL) of the destructive effects of methanol (MET) on phospholipid bilayers is poorly understood. Molecular dynamics simulations showed that MET replaces interfacial water and progressively expands bilayers until pore formation or bilayer destruction occurs. CHOL strongly suppresses this damaging expansion, with substantially more MET required to reach bilayer structural failure at both full hydration and dehydration conditions. Interestingly, increasing CHOL content in the lipid bilayers makes them more susceptible to the reduction in compressibility induced by MET. These findings reveal that increasing sterol content increases lipid bilayer resilience to the deleterious effects of MET.