Biomembrane transport processes

Koryta, J., L.Q. Hung, and A. Hofmanova (1982). Biomembrane transport processes at the rriES with an adsorbed phospholipid monolayer. Stud. Biophys. 90, 25-29. 

All these transport processes are of comparable importance for an organism in order to adapt to changing conditions and to exist in a given environment. This book focuses on the mass transfer aspects across biomembranes, involving ions, molecules, and particles. 

The volume of distribution of a peptide or protein drug is determined largely by its physico-chemical properties (e. g., charge, lipophilicity), protein binding, and dependency on active transport processes. Due to their large size - and therefore limited mobility through biomembranes - most therapeutic proteins have small volumes of distribution, typically limited to the volumes of the extracellular space [26, 51]. 

A variety of alkaloids bind to or intercalate with DNA or DNA/RNA processing enzymes and affect either transcription or replication (quinine, harmane alkaloids, melinone, berberine), act at the level of DNA and RNA polymerases (vinblastine, coralyne, avicine), inhibit protein synthesis (sparteine, tubulosine, vincrastine, lupanine), attack electron chains (pseudane, capsaicin, solenopsine), disrupt biomembranes and transport processes (berbamine, ellipticine, tetrandrine), and inhibit ion channels and pumps (nitidine, caffeine, saxitoxin). In addition, these natural products attack a variety of other systems that can result in serious biochemical destabilization... 

Biomembranes and transport processes. A cell can operate only when it is enclosed by an intact biomembrane and by a complex compartmenta-... 

The permeation of most drugs through cellular membranes is by the process of passive diffusion, a nonsaturable process that follows first-order kinetics. Concentration gradient and lipid solubility of the drug are important determinants of the rate of diffusion. Only a few drug molecules are substrates for active transport processes (eg, tubular secretion of beta-lactam antibiotics) these are saturable at high concentrations. Only very small ions (eg, Li+) or drugs (eg, ethanol) may penetrate biomembranes via aqueous pores. 

The main principles of membrane phosphorylation are the same in chloroplasts, mitochondria, and photosynthetic bacteria. In this section, in order to analyze the role of protonmotive force in the processes of energy transduction in biomembranes, we will focus our attention on the consideration of proton-transport processes in chloroplasts. In thylakoids the ApH is the main component of transmembrane difference in electrochemical potentials of hydrogen ions, AjuH+ = Acp — 2.3(RT/F)ApH. The conductivities of the thylakoid membrane for the majority of cations (Mg ", Na ), existing... 

At present, much attention is devoted to enzymes that utilize the energy of ATP hydrolysis for realization of energy-rich mechanics (myosin), transport (Na+,K+-ATPase, Ca2+-ATPase, chemical processes (nitrogenase), polymerases, topoisomerases, GTPases, and for creation of electrochemical gradients in biomembranes (H+-ATPase, ATP synthase ). In this section we focus on the latter process. The coupling mechanism in the nitrogenase reaction is discussed in Section 3.1. 

Simultaneous heat and mass transfer plays an important role in various physical, chemical, and biological processes hence, a vast amount of published research is available in the literature. Heat and mass transfer occurs in absorption, distillation extraction, drying, melting and crystallization, evaporation, and condensation. Mass flow due to the temperature gradient is known as the thermal diffusion or Soret effect. Heat flow due to the isothermal chemical potential gradient is known as the diffusion thermoeffect or the Dufour effect. The Dufour effect is characterized by the heat of transport, which represents the heat flow due to the diffusion of component / under isothermal conditions. Soret effect and Dufour effect represent the coupled phenomena between the vectorial flows of heat and mass. Since many chemical reactions within a biological cell produce or consume heat, local temperature gradients may contribute in the transport of materials across biomembranes. 

Dermal absorption, the process by which a substance is transported across the skin and taken up into the living tissue of the body (USEPA, 1992), is a complex process. The skin is a multilayered biomembrane with particular absorption characteristics. It is a dynamic, living tissue and as such its absorption parameters are susceptible to constant changes. Upon contact with the skin, a portion of the substance can penetrate into the non-viable stratum comeum and may subsequently reach the viable epidermis, the dermis and, ultimately, the vascular network. During the absorption process, the compound may be subject to biotransformafion (Noonan and Wester, 1989). The stratum comeum provides the skin its greatest barrier function against hydrophilic compounds, whereas the viable epidermis is most resistant to highly lipophilic compounds (Flynn, 1985). 

However, lipid bilayers are impermeable to ions and most polar molecules, with the exception of water, so they cannot, on their own, confer the multiple dynamic processes which we see in the function of biological membranes. All of this comes from proteins, inserted into the essentially inert backbone of the phospholipid bilayer (Figure 3.27), which mediate the multiple functions which we associate with biological membranes, such as molecular recognition by receptors, transport via pumps and channels, energy transduction, enzymes, and many more. Biomembranes are noncovalent assemblies of proteins and hpids, which can best be described as a fluid matrix, in which lipid (and protein molecules) can diffuse rapidly in the plane of the membrane, but not across it. 

Membran systems are known to play an important role in functioning biological objects (in mass transfer processes, passive and active transport of substance, regulation of an endocellular metabolism, in bio-energetics, etc.). Unique properties of biomembranes are caused by their structure, in particular, presence of bimolecular focused layers of lipids. At the same time, one of the main disadvantages of modelling lipid membran systems (monolayers, flat bilayers, liposomes), is their low stability in time and to action of external factors. 

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