Role of planar lipid structure in transmembrane charge conduction

Abstract

<span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:HiddenHorzOCR;mso-bidi-font-family:HiddenHorzOCR">Using planar lipid membrane as the model for biological membranes, we have studied the role of lipid medium in the mechanism of transmembrane charge transport. <span style="font-size:14.0pt; font-family:HiddenHorzOCR;mso-bidi-font-family:HiddenHorzOCR">Here we present a review of our results which indicate that (a) both electrons and ions are charge carriers across these membranes, (b) hydrophilic pores are formed in the planar lipid membrane ", providing the required ionic pathways, (c) membrane I-V characteristics are nonlinear and are monitored by the presence of external agents in the bathing solution, temperature and frequency of the applied electric field. We show that these observations can be explained in the light of semiconducting nature of lipid molecules, double electrode behaviour of the membrane and the theory of charge conduction in binary, inhomogeneous, disordered systems.

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