Lipid chain length and temperature dependence of ethanol-phosphatidylcholine interactions

Effect of a Local Anesthetic Lidocaine Hydrochloride on the Bilayer Structure of Phospholipids

“…supports the idea that local anesthetics act rather nonspecifically and cause physical perturbations of the lipidic part of the nerve membranes, resulting in the blockade of propagation of nerve impulses. On the basis of this idea, a number of studies have been done to determine the effect of anesthetics on the phase transitions of lipid bilayers [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] . The depression of the phase transition temperature is often analyzed by the colligative property of bilayer membranes according to the van't Hoff model, and leads to the partition coefficients of the anesthetics into the bilayer membrane 8,10,12) .…”

Mesoscopic Simulations of Biological Membranes

“…Our simulations also report the so-called "biphasic effect" on the transition from the low temperature gel phase to the high temperature fluid phase [71]; at low concentrations of alcohol, the main transition temperature shifts to a lower temperature, while at high concentrations this transition temperature shifts to a higher temperature compared to a pure lipid bilayer. Figure 13 shows that the increase or decrease in temperature are directly related to the effect of the alcohol on the stability of the low temperature phases [66].…”

“…To study the effect of these molecules on the properties studies on various model membranes have been carried out by various groups [66,[71][72][73][74][75][76]. These studies show that at low temperatures adding alcohol leads the formation of an interdigitated or L βI phase in stead of the commonly formed L c or L β (gel phases).…”

“…The critical bulk concentration at which interdigitation is complete decreases with increasing length of the alcohol [71,75,77]. Various theories have been used to relate the bulk concentration of alcohol to the concentration in the lipid.…”

Anisodamine causes acyl chain interdigitation in phosphatidylglycerol

“…Many factors have been found to induce lipid interdigitation. Some amphiphilic molecules, such as glycerol [I], chlorpromazine [4], methanol, ethanol [5] and thiocyanate [6] can induce an interdigitated gel phase in saturated symmetrical phosphatidylcholines. Polymyxin B [7], myelin basic protein [8,9] and Tris' [lo] can cause interdigitation in phosphatidylglycerols.…”