Electric field dependence of phase transitions in bilayer lipid membranes and possible biological implications.

Abstract

Bilayer lipid membranes consist of an inner hydrocarbon tail region with the hydrophilic polar heads on either side. The order-disorder transition in the hydrocarbon tail reigon, from liquid crystalline (fluid) to gel state, is characterised in terms of a Landau-de Gennes description, in which the effect of an external electric field is incorporated through its description, in which the effect of an external electric field is incorporated through its interaction with the surface charges on the bilayer (placed as it is in an ionic medium) or with the polar heads. Biological implications of such a phase transition, for excitable membranes, resides in a model wherein ion channels (taken to be composed of protein bundles) are postulated to be surrounded by lipid molecules in the fluid phase when the membrane is in its resting state, while surface charges and/or the polar heads of the lipid molecules responding to an electric stimulus, if of adequate magnitude, induces a transition in the hydrocarbon tail region of the (boundary) lipid surrounding the ion channels from the liquid crystalline (fluid) to the crystalline (gel) phase which, in turn, through coupling with the relevant modes of the protein bundles, results in the opening of the ion channels, provinding thereby a mechanism for the desired response.