Liposomes are widely used as drug delivery systems in different forms including osmotic pumps, infusion and IV injection. In spite of these, there is no data available about their behavior under convective flow (e.g. infusion or osmotic pumps) and upon stagnation in such drug delivery systems. As a part of a series of investigations in this area, the present study investigates the effects of vi...

Electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy was used to study the penetration and interaction of bee venom melittin with dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) and ditetradecylphosphatidylglycerol (DTPG) bilayer membranes. Melittin is a surface-active, amphipathic peptide and serves as a useful model for a variety of membrane interactions, including those of presequences and signal peptides, as w...

Theoretical modeling is presented for a freestanding vitreous silica bilayer which has recently been synthesized and characterized experimentally in landmark work. While such two-dimensional continuous random covalent networks should likely occur on energetic grounds, no synthetic pathway had been discovered previously. Here the bilayer is modeled using a computer assembly procedure initiated f...

In this study, the interaction of cisplatin (1) and two potential antitumoral Pt(II) complexes (2 and 3) with a model DMPC bilayer was investigated by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy and MD simulations in order to understand its implication for the different antitumoral properties shown by the three complexes. In particular, (31)P, (13)C and (2)H solid state NMR experiments were performed to obta...

Disaccharide glycosides synthesised from food grade resources consist of the hydrophilic head group of maltose or lactose and provide better hydrophilic-lipophilic balance (HLB = 12) to the long alkyl chain derived from palm oil (PO) and palm kernel oil (PKO). Maltoside provides more flexibility in the vesicle's membrane because of its low packing density in the bilayer membrane compared to lac...

The new training literature suggests that in a monopsonistic market employers will not only pay for fi rm-specifi c training but also for general training if the risk of poaching is limited. This implies that training participation should decrease when competition for employees is higher among fi rms. Using worker level data for Germany we fi nd that the hypothesis is supported empirically. Spe...

Three (bola)amphiphilic spirooxazines have been synthesized and their photochromism has been characterized. The large biphotochromic structure of 2 significantly affects its conformational flexibility and the rate constants for thermal ring closure are particularly dependent on the lipid phase state. Two comprehensive ion permeation studies were performed to examine the effect of spirooxazine i...

Nystatin and amphotericin B induce a cation-selective conductance when added to one side of a lipid bilayer membrane and an anion-selective conductance when added to both sides. The concentrations of antibiotic required for the one-sided action are comparable to those employed on plasma membranes and are considerably larger than those required for the two-sided action. We propose that the two-s...

Isolated pore-lining helices derived from three types of K-channel have been analyzed in terms of their structural and dynamic features in nanosecond molecular dynamics (MD) simulations while spanning a lipid bilayer. The helices were 1) M1 and M2 from the bacterial channel KcsA (Streptomyces lividans), 2) S5 and S6 from the voltage-gated (Kv) channel Shaker (Drosophila melanogaster), and 3) M1...

β-lactamases are bacterial enzymes that confer resistance to β-lactam antibiotics, such as penicillins and cephalosporins. There are four classes of β-lactamase enzymes, each with characteristic sequence and structure properties. Enzymes from class A are the most common and have been well characterized across the family; however, less is known about how physicochemical properties vary across th...