The role of alterations in membrane lipid composition in enabling physiological adaptation of organisms to their physical environment.

Lecithin bilayers. Density measurement and molecular interactions

Lipid phase transitions and phase diagrams. I. Lipid phase transitions.

Sodium channels in nerve membranes are postulated to be surrounded by lipid molecules in the gel (or crystalline) phase. Addition of local anaesthetics triggers a change in the surrounding lipids to the fluid, liquid crystalline phase, allowing the sodium channel to close with resulting local anaesthesia. The experimental evidence for this model is discussed.

Model for action of local anaesthetics

Local anesthetics and pressure: a comparison of dibucaine binding to lipid monolayers and bilayers

Several workers have shown that phase transition-related changes in membrane lipids have a profound effect on membrane-solvated protein function. This phase transition temperature dependence has been explained as resulting from the formation of lateral phase separations within the membrane bilayer. The present study demonstrates that a clinical concentration of an inhalation anesthetic produces changes in both the phase transition temperature of pure lipid bilayers and the lateral phase separation temperature of mixed dipalmitoyl- and dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine bilayers of a magnitude sufficient to influence protein function. It is further shown that pressure is able to antagonize the effect of the anesthetic on these transition temperatures. It is proposed that anesthetic action within nerve membranes may be the result of changes in the lateral phase separation-controlled environment of the membrane-solvated proteins essential to nerve function.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/72/1/210.full.pdf

The antagonistic effect of an inhalation anesthetic and high pressure on the phase diagram of mixed dipalmitoyl-dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine bilayers

Pressure-induced elevation of phase transition temperature in dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine bilayers: An electron spin resonance measurement of the enthalpy of phase transition

D.G. Payan

Papers

The antagonistic effect of an inhalation anesthetic and high pressure on the phase diagram of mixed dipalmitoyl-dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine bilayers

Pressure-induced elevation of phase transition temperature in dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine bilayers: An electron spin resonance measurement of the enthalpy of phase transition

The effect of pressure on the phase diagram of mixed dipalmitoyl-dymyristoylphosphatidylcholine bilayers