Conversion of biomembrane-produced energy into electric form V. Membrane particles of Micrococcus lysodeikticus and pea chloroplasts

Membrane orientation in vesicles from Micrococcus lysodeikticus cells

“…At the same time cyanide inhibited the respiration of the osmotically treated membrane fractions by 30-40% and of the ultrasonic fractions by 70%. These findings, in complete agreement with the results of Tikhonova et al [8] and Grinius et al [9], show that the membrane fractions contain closed inverted vesicles.…”

“…Because of the comprehensive nature of the studies by Tikhonova et al [8] and Grinius et al [9] we did not go any further into this matter directing our main attention to study of the cation transport.…”

“…The composition of the medium made it possible to follow the transport by determining the changes in concentration of these ions in the medium. Determination of the K + concentration was with a IC-sensitive glass electrode and the PCB-concentration by a procedure used in similar experiments by Grinius et al [9], employing a phospholipid bilayer as the selective electrode. The concentration of membrane particles in the medium corresponded to 3-4 mg protein/ml and all the measurements were made in a temperature controlled cell at 26°C.…”

Electrogenesis by bacteriorhodopsin incorporated in a planar phospholipid membrane

“…To measure the membrane potential in mitochondria, Mitchell and Moyle determined K+ distribution across the membrane of energized mitochondria whose K+ permeability was increased by valinomycin [5] . Our group, has described the antiport of synthetic penetrating anions and cations across the membranes of energized mitochondria [6], submitochondrial particles [7,8], subchloroplast particles [9] , chromatophores of photoNorth-Holland Publishing Company -Amsterdam synthetic bacteria [IO] and particles of respiring bacteria [9] . The discovery of this phenomenon defined as transmembraneous electrophoresis [ 11,121 was considered to support the idea of electric potential generation in coupling membranes.…”