The effect of n-alcohols on vesicular permeability induced at the lipid phase transition temperature: a 1H-NMR study

A Membrane Biophysics Perspective on the Mechanism of Alcohol Toxicity

Motivations for understanding the underlying mechanisms of alcohol toxicity range from economical to toxicological and clinical. On the one hand, acute alcohol toxicity limits biofuel yields, and on the other hand, acute alcohol toxicity provides a vital defense mechanism to prevent the spread of disease. Herein the role that stored curvature elastic energy (SCE) in biological membranes might play in alcohol toxicity is discussed, for both short and long-chain alcohols. Structure-toxicity relationships for alcohols ranging from methanol to hexadecanol are collated, and estimates of alcohol toxicity per alcohol molecule in the cell membrane are made. The latter reveal a minimum toxicity value per molecule around butanol before alcohol toxicity per molecule increases to a maximum around decanol and subsequently decreases again. The impact of alcohol molecules on the lamellar to inverse hexagonal phase transition temperature (T_H) is then presented and used as a metric to assess the impact of alcohol molecules on SCE. This approach suggests the nonmonotonic relationship between alcohol toxicity and chain length is consistent with SCE being a target of alcohol toxicity. Finally, in vivo evidence for SCE-driven adaptations to alcohol toxicity in the literature are discussed.

Real-Time Monitoring of Interactions between Solid-Supported Lipid Vesicle Layers and Short- and Medium-Chain Length Alcohols: Ethanol and 1-Pentanol

Lipid bilayers represent the interface between the cell and its environment, serving as model systems for the study of various biological processes. For instance, the addition of small molecules such as alcohols is a well-known process that modulates lipid bilayer properties, being considered as a reference for general anesthetic molecules. A plethora of experimental and simulation studies have focused on alcohol’s effect on lipid bilayers. Nevertheless, most studies have focused on lipid membranes formed in the presence of alcohols, while the effect of n-alcohols on preformed lipid membranes has received much less research interest. Here, we monitor the real-time interaction of short-chain alcohols with solid-supported vesicles of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) using quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) as a label-free method. Results indicate that the addition of ethanol at different concentrations induces changes in the bilayer organization but preserves the stability of the supported vesicle layer. In turn, the addition of 1-pentanol induces not only changes in the bilayer organization, but also promotes vesicle rupture and inhomogeneous lipid layers at very high concentrations.

Alcohol's effects on lipid bilayer properties

Alcohols are known modulators of lipid bilayer properties. Their biological effects have long been attributed to their bilayer-modifying effects, but alcohols can also alter protein function through direct protein interactions. This raises the question: Do alcohol's biological actions result predominantly from direct protein-alcohol interactions or from general changes in the membrane properties? The efficacy of alcohols of various chain lengths tends to exhibit a so-called cutoff effect (i.e., increasing potency with increased chain length, which that eventually levels off). The cutoff varies depending on the assay, and numerous mechanisms have been proposed such as: limited size of the alcohol-protein interaction site, limited alcohol solubility, and a chain-length-dependent lipid bilayer-alcohol interaction. To address these issues, we determined the bilayer-modifying potency of 27 aliphatic alcohols using a gramicidin-based fluorescence assay. All of the alcohols tested (with chain lengths of 1-16 carbons) alter the bilayer properties, as sensed by a bilayer-spanning channel. The bilayer-modifying potency of the short-chain alcohols scales linearly with their bilayer partitioning; the potency tapers off at higher chain lengths, and eventually changes sign for the longest-chain alcohols, demonstrating an alcohol cutoff effect in a system that has no alcohol-binding pocket.

Molecular packing in 1-hexanol–DMPC bilayers studied by molecular dynamics simulation

The structure and molecular packing density of a "mismatched" solute, 1-hexanol, in lipid membranes of dimyristoyl phosphatidylcholine (DMPC) was studied by molecular dynamics simulations. We found that the average location and orientation of the hexanol molecules matched earlier experimental data on comparable systems. The local density or molecular packing in DMPC-hexanol was elucidated through the average Voronoi volumes of all heavy (non-hydrogen) atoms. Analogous analysis was conducted on trajectories from simulations of pure 1-hexanol and pure (hydrated) DMPC bilayers. The results suggested a positive volume change, DeltaV(m), of 4 cm(3) mol(-1) hexanol partitioned at 310 K in good accordance with experimental values. Analysis of the apparent volumes of each component in the pure and mixed states further showed that DeltaV(m) reflects a balance between a substantial increase in the packing density of the alcohol upon partitioning and an even stronger loosening in the packing of the lipid. Furthermore, analysis of Voronoi volumes along the membrane normal identifies a distinctive depth dependence of the changes in molecular packing. The outer (interfacial) part of the lipid acyl chains (up to C8) is stretched by about 4%. Concomitantly, the average lateral area per chain decreases and these two effects compensate so that the overall packing density in the outer region, where the hexanol molecules are located, remains practically constant. The core of the bilayer (C9-C13) is slightly thinned. The average lateral area per chain in this region expands, resulting in a looser packing density. The net effect in the core is a 2-3% decrease in density corresponding to a total volume increase of approximately 14 cm(3) mol(-1) hexanol partitioned.

Packing properties of 1-alkanols and alkanes in a phospholipid membrane

We have used vibrating tube densitometry to investigate the packing properties of four alkanes and a homologous series of ten alcohols in fluid-phase membranes of dimyristoyl phosphatidylcholine (DMPC). It was found that the volume change of transferring these compounds from their pure states into the membrane, DeltaV(m)(pure-->mem), was positive for small (C4-C6) 1-alkanols while it was negative for larger alcohols and all alkanes. The magnitude of DeltaV(m)(pure-->mem) ranged from about +4 cm3/mol for alcohols with an alkyl chain about half the length of the fatty acids of DMPC, to -10 to -15 cm3/mol for the alkanes and long chain alcohols. On the basis of these observations, previously published information on the structure of the membrane-solute complexes and the free volume properties of (pure) phospholipid membranes, we suggest that two effects dominate the packing properties of hydrophobic solutes in DMPC. First, perturbation of the tightly packed interfacial zone around the ester bonds and first few methylene groups of DMPC brings about a positive contribution to DeltaV(m)(pure-->mem). This effect dominates the volume behavior for alcohols like 1-butanol, 1-pentanol and 1-hexanol. More hydrophobic solutes penetrate into the membrane core, which is loosely packed. In this region, they partially occupy interstitial (or free-) volume, which bring about a denser molecular packing and generate a negative contribution to DeltaV(m)(pure-->mem).

The use of exogenous fluorescent probes for temperature measurements in single living cells

The fluorescent membrane probes 7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazol-4-yl (NBD) and 6-dodecanoyl-2-dimethylamino-naphthalene (laurdan) have been studied for use as optical thermometers in living cells. The thermal sensitivity of NBD is primarily a consequence of rapid, heat-induced electronic changes, which increase the observed fluorescence decay rate. As a result, fluorescence intensity and lifetime variations of membrane-bound NBD-conjugated phospholipids and fatty acids can be directly correlated with cellular temperature. In contrast, laurdan fluorescence undergoes a dramatic temperature-dependent Stokes shift as the membrane undergoes a gel-to-liquid-crystalline phase transition. This facilitates the use of fluorescence spectra to record the indirect effect of microenvironmental changes, which occur during bilayer heating. Microscope and suspension measurements of cells and phospholipid vesicles are compared for both probes using steady-state and fluorescence lifetime (suspension only) data. Our results show that NBD fluorescence lifetime recordings can provide reasonable temperature resolution (approximately 2 degrees C) over a broad temperature range. Laurdan's microenvironmental sensitivity permits better temperature resolution (0.1-1 degree C) at the expense of a more limited dynamic range that is determined solely by bilayer properties. The temperature sensitivity of NBD is based on rapid intramolecular rotations and vibrations, while laurdan relies on a slower, multistep mechanism involving bilayer rearrangement, water penetration and intermolecular processes. Because of these differences in time scale, NBD appears to be more suitable for monitoring ultrafast phenomena, such as the impact of short-pulse microirradiation on single cells.

31P- and 1H-NMR investigations of the effect of n-alcohols on the hydrolysis by phospholipase A2 of phospholipid vesicular membranes

31P- and 1H-NMR spectroscopy of small, unilamellar egg yolk phosphatidylcholine (PC) vesicles in the presence of the lanthanide ion Dy3+ have been used to study the effect of various n-alcohols on the permeability induced by the action of the enzyme phospholipase A2 (PLA2). The method allows the monitoring of the number of PC and lysoPC molecules in the outer and inner monolayers. The results indicate that the initial rate of hydrolysis of PC by PLA2 is increased by all the n-alcohols but in a chain-length dependent manner and that the maximum rate occurs at n = 8 (octan-1-ol). The subsequent rate is dependent upon the rate of transbilayer lipid exchange (flip-flop) of PC molecules from the inner to the outer monolayer. The vesicles only become permeable to the Dy3+ ions when lysoPC is mobilised in the flip-flop process of exchange of lipid molecules between the two monolayers. The n-alcohols affect both the time taken to initiate flip-flop of inner monolayer PC and the subsequent rate of permeability to Dy3+. The n-alcohols are seen to affect all the above rates in an identical chain-length dependent manner, indicating a common cause for all observations which we identify as the degree of clustering of the n-alcohol molecules in the bilayer. The results are discussed in terms of the chain-length dependent mechanism of n-alcohol interactions with the membrane and the mechanism by which the vesicles become permeable to Dy3+ ions.