Question

Long, saturated fatty acid tails _____ lipid mobility and _____ membrane fluidity. enhance; increase reduce; increase enhance; maintain maintain; decrease reduce; decrease

Answer 1

reduce lipid mobility
decrease membrane fluidity

When fatty acid tails are saturated, it means that their conformation is perfectly straight becoming easy to compact more and more fatty acids, as they fit perfectly together, and therefore reducing lipid mobility. In turn, if lipid mobility is reduced, the membrane fluidity is decreased because the lipids are too "stiff" together.