Vitamin E, obtained through consumption, was observed to prevent rat reproduction when absent from the diet. Despite being discovered in 1922 by Evans and Bishop, its biological role is fervently debated to this day. Vitamin E molecules are well known to be potent antioxidants, commonly used in the cosmetic and food industry. The notion that vitamin E is simply a biological antioxidant has been deemed antiquated by some; however, one cannot completely abandon the notion that vitamin E’s redox chemistry plays a pivotal role in its biological function. The limits of a non-antioxidant role of vitamin E are discovered through understanding the influence of various tocopherols on membrane organization. Model membranes with established phase behaviour are used as a platform to assess the influence of vitamin E on potential lipid rafts. Probe-free contrast-matched small angle neutron scattering and fluorescence microscopy studies have shown that only supraphysiological amount of vitamin E are able to influence these robust, highly stable domains. We follow up by exploring domain stability in a more biologically-representative model emulating nanoscale phase separation. This platform also incorporates polyunsaturated fatty acid lipids that preferentially associate with vitamin E. By complementing contrast-matched small angle neutron scattering studies with Förster resonance energy transfer studies and differential scanning calorimetry, the results of the archetypical domain forming mixture are largely recaptured. In these studies, the division between the effects on domains from oxidized and non-oxidized vitamin E proposes an intriguing dimension to an antioxidant mechanism of vitamin E.

Vitamin E as a membrane raft modulator

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