Perturbation of Lipid and Protein Structure by General Anesthetics: How Little Is Too Little?

Abstract

Assistant Professor of Anesthesia Harvard Medical SchoolAssistant AnesthetistMassachusetts General HospitalDepartment of AnesthesiaBoston, Massachusetts 02114Raines@etherdome.MGH.harvard.edu.To the Editor:—Lipid-based theories of general anesthetic action have long endured because numerous studies have shown that the in vivo pharmacology of an anesthetic correlates remarkably well with its ability to perturb the structural properties of simple lipid bilayers. The Meyer-Overton correlation between anesthetic potency and hydrophobicity, the inactivity of nonanesthetic long chain alcohols and highly halogenated volatile compounds (nonimmobilizers), and pressure reversal have all been demonstrated in studies using protein-free lipid bilayers. 1–6Nevertheless, a most persuasive and often mentioned argument against lipid-based theories is that at clinically relevant concentrations, anesthetics induce only small perturbations in lipid bilayer structure. 7,8For example, halothane reduces the order parameter (increase the “fluidity”) of lipid bilayers by only 1% at clinically relevant concentrations. 9An equivalent reduction in order parameter may be obtained by raising the temperature of the bilayer by less than 1°C. Similarly, halothane reduces the transition temperature between a lipid bilayer’s liquid and gel phases by only 0.5°C at anesthetic concentrations and by only 5°C even at 10 times the minimum aveolar concentration (MAC). 10I was, therefore, very interested to read the study by Johansson et al. quantifying the effects of isoflurane and halothane on structural properties of bovine serum albumin, a lipid-free protein model used in mechanistic studies of anesthetic action. 11What did their studies show? At approximately 1 MAC, isoflurane and halothane increased the fluorescence anisotropy of bovine serum albumin by 1%. An equivalent reduction was obtained by raising the temperature of bovine serum albumin by approximately 1° C. Similarly, isoflurane and halothane raised the transition temperature between the folded and unfolded states of bovine serum albumin by less than 1°C at anesthetic concentrations and by only 3–4°C even at 10 times MAC. Studies of anesthetic binding to other protein models have been similarly unable to demonstrate significant anesthetic-induced changes in protein structure. 12,13Thus, anesthetics induce similarly small changes in the structural properties of lipids and proteins. For consistency, shouldn’t we now conclude that such insensitivity argues strongly against a protein site of anesthetic action?The inability to detect significant anesthetic-induced structural changes in either lipid or protein model systems highlights the practical (and obvious) limitations of such studies: we can only measure what we can measure. Fluorescence anisotropy, denaturation temperature, phase transition temperature, and order parameter have been used by biophysicists for many years as indicators of lipid bilayer and protein structure in large part because they are easily quantitated. There is no compelling theoretical reason to believe that changes in these properties directly accounts for the functional effects of anesthetics on relevant targets in the central nervous system. In fact, it seems quite likely that the anesthetic state results from changes in other lipid and/or protein physical properties that are not so easily measured.