Membrane, artificial black lipid

Table 9.1 provides the values of membrane resistance (/ ), capacitance (Cm), and thickness d) of artificial BLMs and natural cell membranes [11,18]. The resistance of artificial membranes is much higher than that of biological membranes. This results from the presence of translocators such as peptides and proteins in the cell membranes. The resistance of artificial membranes can however be reduced to the levels of natural cell membranes when ion translocators are inserted. Specific capacitance (C ) is the primary criterion to distinguish between solventless BLMs and black lipid films. Table 9.1 exhibits that the specific capacitance of the solventless BLMs (about 0.9 /itF cm ) approaches the values measured for natural cell membranes, and is almost twice the magnitude observed for black lipid membranes. These values of specific capacitance can be used to estimate the hydrocarbon thickness, d, of membranes using the equation... 

Fig. 20. The surface of a hydrophobic SPR-sensor (covered with long chain alkanethiols) was enlarged to an artificial membrane by application of lipid vesicles with a defined size distribution. Application of a Ras-lipopeptide construct with both a farnesyl- and a palmitoyl-modification leads to increase in resonance signal assumed to indicate membrane insertion (grey trace). Washing with buffer induces the slow decrease in signal. A Ras protein without hydrophobic modification (black trace) does not lead to signal increase...

Artificial lipid bilayer membranes can be made [22,23] either by coating an orifice separating two compartments with a thin layer of dissolved lipid (which afterwards drains to form a bilayered structure—the so-called black film ) or by merely shaking a suspension of phospholipid in water until an emulsion of submicroscopic particles is obtained—the so-called liposome . Treatment of such an emulsion by sonication can convert it from a collection of concentric multilayers to single-walled bilayers. Bilayers may also be blown at the end of a capillary tube. Such bilayer preparations have been very heavily studied as models for cell membranes. They have the advantage that their composition can be controlled and the effect of various phospholipid components and of cholesterol on membrane properties can be examined. Such preparations focus attention on the lipid components of the membrane for investigation, without the complication of protein carriers or pore-forming molecules. Finally, the solutions at the two membrane interfaces can readily be manipulated. Many, but not all, of the studies on artificial membranes support the view developed in the previous sections of this chapter that membranes behave in terms of their permeability properties as fairly structured and by no means extremely non-polar sheets of barrier molecules. 

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