Although general anesthetics are clinically important and widely used, their molecular mechanisms of action remain poorly understood. Volatile anesthetics such as isoflurane (ISO) are thought to alter neuronal function by depressing excitatory and facilitating inhibitory neurotransmission through direct interactions with specific protein targets, including voltage-gated sodium channels (Na(v))....

Many drugs and other small molecules used to modulate biological function are amphiphiles that adsorb at the bilayer/solution interface and thereby alter lipid bilayer properties. This is important because membrane proteins are energetically coupled to their host bilayer by hydrophobic interactions. Changes in bilayer properties thus alter membrane protein function, which provides an indirect w...

Supported lipid bilayers (SLB) are important for the study of membrane-based phenomena and as coatings for biosensors. Nevertheless, there is a fundamental lack of understanding of the process by which they form from vesicles in solution. We report insights into the mechanism of SLB formation by vesicle adsorption using temperature-controlled time-resolved fluorescence microscopy at low vesicle...

Quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) monitoring and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were combined to evaluate the defects created by an ionic liquid anion and a cation in a supported phospholipid bilayer composed of zwitterionic lipids on a silica surface. The cation 1-octyl-3-methyl imidazolium (OMIM(+)) was shown to remove lipids from the bilayer, increase the roughness to appro...

The partitioning of the n-alkyl-p-aminobenzoates into the lipid bilayer is dependent not only on their physicochemical properties, but also on temperature and bilayer composition. Partitioning studies with this homologous series demonstrate the effect of alkyl chain length on partitioning in pure DPPC liposomes at 23 and 50°C and in DPPC : Chol liposomes at 23°C. A general trend is observed whe...

A fi rewall is a collection of components interposed between two networks that fi lter traffi c between them according to some security policy [1]. Typically, fi rewalls rely on restrictions in the network topology to perform this fi ltering. One key assumption under this model is that everyone on the protected network(s) is trusted, since internal traffi c is not seen by the fi rewall and thus...

By blending storytelling with topics in biology, a fun activity can be created for students to strengthen their scientific knowledge (1-3). The “Sci-Fi Microbe” writing assignment lets students create an altered version of a known microorganism, and write a story describing an unusual observation that leads the characters discovery of their new microorganism. The Sci-Fi Microbe exercise is appr...

Membrane proteins are regulated by the lipid bilayer composition. Specific lipid-protein interactions rarely are involved, which suggests that the regulation is due to changes in some general bilayer property (or properties). The hydrophobic coupling between a membrane-spanning protein and the surrounding bilayer means that protein conformational changes may be associated with a reversible, loc...

Psychosocial stress influences cognitive abilities, such as long-term memory retrieval. However, less is known about the effects of stress on cognitive flexibility, which is mediated by different neurobiological circuits and could thus be regulated by different neuroendocrine pathways. In this study, we randomly assigned healthy adults to an acute stress induction or control condition and subse...