Anionic lipids influence the ability of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor to gate open in response to neurotransmitter binding, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. We show here that anionic lipids with relatively small headgroups, and thus the greatest ability to influence lipid packing/bilayer physical properties, are the most effective at stabilizing an agonist-activatable...

The effect of three membrane-stabilizing agents, chlorpromazine, imipramine, and lidocain, on in vitro activation of cellular responses was studied using the one-way MLR. Cellular activation was found to be depressed by these drugs. However, the degree of suppression paralleled the decline of viable cells in the cultures. It is concluded that drug-induced inhibition of MLR was due solely to the...

objective(s) aristolochia indica has been widely used in the traditional medicine for the treatment of a variety of diseases. in the present study different extracts of roots of a. indica were evaluated for their anti­inflammatory, antipruritic and mast cell stabilizing activity. materials and methods anti-inflammatory activity was performed by compound 48/80 induced rat paw edema model and ant...

We have previously shown that cisplatin triggers an early acid sphingomyelinase (aSMase)-dependent ceramide generation concomitantly with an increase in membrane fluidity and induces apoptosis in HT29 cells. The present study further explores the role and origin of membrane fluidification in cisplatin-induced apoptosis. The rapid increase in membrane fluidity following cisplatin treatment was i...

The effects of alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) deficiency on membrane properties of platelets were studied to determine if vitamin E has a measureable stabilizing role in biological membranes. Three groups of rats and three of mice were studied: two groups consisted of Fisher strain rats and one of Sprague-Dawley rats fed a Draper corn oil diet with and without high levels of supplementary vitamin...

While membrane insertion of single-spanning membrane proteins into the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is relatively well understood, it is unclear how multi-spanning proteins integrate. We have investigated the cotranslational ER integration of a double-spanning protein that is derived from leader peptidase. Both transmembrane (TM) segments are inserted into the membrane by the Sec61 channel. While...

Growing evidence indicates that membrane traffic plays a crucial role during the late post-furrowing steps of cytokinesis in animal cells. Indeed, both endocytosis and exocytosis contribute to stabilizing the intercellular bridge that connects the daughter cells and to the final abscission in diverse organisms. The need for several intracellular transport routes probably reflects the complex ev...

The bacterial mechanosensitive channel MscL gates in response to membrane tension as a result of mechanical force transmitted directly to the channel from the lipid bilayer. MscL represents an excellent model system to study the basic biophysical principles of mechanosensory transduction. However, understanding of the essential structural components that transduce bilayer tension into channel g...