Membrane amphiphilic

The relation between the architecture of the molecules and the spatial morphology into which they assemble has attracted longstanding interest because of their importance in daily life. Lipid molecules are important constituents of the cell membrane. Amphiphilic molecules are of major importance for teclmological applications (e.g., in detergents and the food industry). 

Markin-Volkov (MV) isotherm — Classical isotherms of -> adsorption (- Frumkin, -> Langmuir) were based on the model of nonpenetrable interface, where an adsorbate can substitute only molecules of one solvent. However, at the interface between two immiscible electrolytes or liquid membranes, amphiphilic molecules can substitute molecules of both solvents. Therefore classical... 

Phospholipid molecules form bilayer films or membranes about 5 nm in thickness as illustrated in Fig. XV-10. Vesicles or liposomes are closed bilayer shells in the 100-1000-nm size range formed on sonication of bilayer forming amphiphiles. Vesicles find use as controlled release and delivery vehicles in cosmetic lotions, agrochemicals, and, potentially, drugs. The advances in cryoelec-tron microscopy (see Section VIII-2A) in recent years have aided their characterization [70-72]. Additional light and x-ray scattering measurements reveal bilayer thickness and phase transitions [70, 71]. Differential thermal analysis... 

For structures with a high curvature (e.g., small micelles) or situations where orientational interactions become important (e.g., the gel phase of a membrane) lattice-based models might be inappropriate. Off-lattice models for amphiphiles, which are quite similar to their counterparts in polymeric systems, have been used to study the self-assembly into micelles [ ], or to explore the phase behaviour of Langmuir monolayers [ ] and bilayers. In those systems, various phases with a nematic ordering of the hydrophobic tails occur. 

Liverpool T B and Bernardes A T 1995 Monte Carlo simulation of the formation of layered struotures and membranes by amphiphiles J. Physique II 5 1003... 

A typical biomembrane consists largely of amphiphilic lipids with small hydrophilic head groups and long hydrophobic fatty acid tails. These amphiphiles are insoluble in water (<10 ° mol L ) and capable of self-organization into uitrathin bilaycr lipid membranes (BLMs). Until 1977 only natural lipids, in particular phospholipids like lecithins, were believed to form spherical and related vesicular membrane structures. Intricate interactions of the head groups were supposed to be necessary for the self-organization of several ten thousands of... 

Finally, some amphiphilic sweeteners, eg, aspartame, saccharin, and neohesperidin dihydrochalcone, have been shown to be capable of stimulating a purified G-protein direcdy in an in vitro assay (136). This suggests some sweeteners may be able to cross the plasma membrane and stimulate the G-protein without first binding to a receptor. This type of action could explain the relatively longer response times and the lingering of taste associated with many high potency sweeteners. 

LB Films of Polymeric Amphiphile. Since the first successful deposition of a polymeric LB film (61), there have been a large number of studies examining different stmctural parameters on the transferabiHty and stabiHty of the polymeric LB films (4). One interesting idea for polymers for LB films is the use of a spacer group (mosdy hydrophilic) to decouple the motion of the polymer from that of the Hpid membrane (62,63). Monolayers from a poljmier (10) having hydrophilic phosphate groups and a tetraethylene oxide spacer were used to link a glycerol diether to the polymer chain (63). 

The other class of phenomenological approaches subsumes the random surface theories (Sec. B). These reduce the system to a set of internal surfaces, supposedly filled with amphiphiles, which can be described by an effective interface Hamiltonian. The internal surfaces represent either bilayers or monolayers—bilayers in binary amphiphile—water mixtures, and monolayers in ternary mixtures, where the monolayers are assumed to separate oil domains from water domains. Random surface theories have been formulated on lattices and in the continuum. In the latter case, they are an interesting application of the membrane theories which are studied in many areas of physics, from general statistical field theory to elementary particle physics [26]. Random surface theories for amphiphilic systems have been used to calculate shapes and distributions of vesicles, and phase transitions [27-31]. 

Whereas the main challenge for the first bilayer simulations has been to obtain stable bilayers with properties (e.g., densities) which compare well with experiments, more and more complex problems can be tackled nowadays. For example, lipid bilayers were set up and compared in different phases (the fluid, the gel, the ripple phase) [67,68,76,81]. The formation of large pores and the structure of water in these water channels have been studied [80,81], and the forces acting on lipids which are pulled out of a membrane have been measured [82]. The bilayer systems themselves are also becoming more complex. Bilayers made of complicated amphiphiles such as unsaturated lipids have been considered [83,84]. The effect of adding cholesterol has been investigated [85,86]. An increasing number of studies are concerned with the important complex of hpid/protein interactions [87-89] and, in particular, with the structure of ion channels [90-92]. 

V. Degiorgio, M. Corti, eds. Physics of Amphiphiles Micelles, Vesicles and Microemulsions. Amsterdam North-Holland, 1985 W. M. Gelbart, A. Ben-Shaul, D. Roux, eds. Micelles, membranes, microemulsions and monolayers. Berlin Springer, 1994. 

C. Hydrated monovalent cation approaching an area of the membrane where an amphiphilic carrier is located with its lipid side in contact with the lipid layer and with polar oxygens directed outward into solution. On close approach to the carrier, water molecules in the first coordination shell become replaced by carrier oxygens. As the ion becomes enclosed, the carrier moves into the lipid layer. 

As schematically shown in Fig. 1C, a carrier is an amphiphilic molecule capable of residing at the membrane aqueous interface with its lipophilic side interacting with the lipid of the membrane, with polar moieties directed outward into the aqueous phase, and with the polar moieties of a chemical nature to induce an ion into interaction. In the process of a carrier interacting and complexing with the ion, it... 

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