Membrane stabilizing activity definition

Although as a class the chelates are definitely bacteriostatic, the relative contributions of uptake and dissociation for both inert and labile species need to be more clearly defined before a full picture is obtained. The results suggest that kinetic reactivity may be more important than thermodynamic stability [30]. In the case of copper(II) complexes with 1,10-phenanthroline and 2,9-dimethyl-1,10-phenanthrolines, more recent studies showed that the major mode of action on P. denitrificans in vitro was in fact inhibition of respiratory electron transport in the cytoplasmic membrane, no correlation with inhibition of macromolecular synthesis being apparent [31]. These results are relevant in view of the discrepancy in the reported antitumour activity of these species (see Section 6.2). 

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