Influence of Temperature on Dynamic Surface Properties of Spread DPPC Monolayers in a Broad Range of Surface Pressures

This work is focused on the study of the dynamic surface properties of spread monolayers of 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC), which is the main component of the pulmonary surfactant (PS), in the region of high surface pressures and at different temperatures. The increase of temperature from 25 to 35 °C led to a decrease of surface elasticity in the high surface pressure range corresponding to physiological conditions inside alveoli during breathing. Furthermore, the obtained results evidenced that the relaxation processes in spread DPPC monolayer were accelerated with the increase of temperature, which resulted in two different effects. On one hand, it led to the increase of hysteresis of surface pressure isotherms, which was an important condition for maximizing air penetration into alveoli; whereas on the other hand, it prevented reaching extremely high surface pressure, which could result in a premature alveolar collapse.