Membranes Flashcards
Separates cell from environment, regulates movement of materials into and out of the cell.
Why is it significant?
Plasma membrane
Gives cells their individuality. Allows for compartmentalization of intracellular organelles, roles, function. Like an adipose cell acts and reacts differently from a liver cell, from a cardiac cell, from a RBC, etc.
Allows things, once they have been made to be post-translationally modified by things like glycoslyation (cleaving things off and putting things on), allows things to translocate, aka transport.
Golgi complexes processes
Protein synthesizing machines in the cell.
Ribosomes
Destroys peroxides
Peroxisomes.
If you dont get rid of peroxides like hydrogen peroxide, free radicals will be produced, which will damage dna lipids and proteins.
Supports cell, aids in movement of organelles
Cytoskeleton
Degrades intracellular debris.
Lysosome.
Shuttles lipids and proteins between ER, Golgi, and plasma membrane.
Transport vesicle.
Site of lipid synthesis and drug metabolism.
SER smooth endoplasmic reticulum
Site that contains the genes (chromatin).
Nucleus
Site of ribosomal RNA synthesis
Nucleolus
Site of much protein synthesis
RER rough endoplasmic reticulum
Has ribosomes in here.
Oxidizes fuels to produce atp.
Mitochondrion
Segregates chromatin (dna = protein) from cytoplasm.
Nuclear envelope
What is in between the inner and outer leaflet of the trilaminar membrane?
What is the approximate thickness of this membrane?
Intercellular space. (very hydrophobic because they are filled with hydrophobic tails).
50-one hundred angstroms.
Give me examples of how membrane proteins can function for the cell (6).
- Transporters (atp)
- can act as enzymes (peripheral)
- signal transduction (receptors and signaling molecule)
- recognition proteins (allows us to differentiate self from non-self)
- fasten cells to adjacent cells
- attachment (attach proteins to different cells to distinguish between apical and basal ones)
What are the 3 different types of artificial membranes?
Micelle
Bilayer
Vesicle
Head group cross section is larger than the actual cross section of side chain. What type of interactions is it?
like attracts like, hydrophobic tails go inside, and the heads outside forming this structure.
Micelle
Non covalent interactions.
Individual units are cylindrical (cross section of head equals that of the side chain).
Example phospholipid head group equal to that of the side chains.
Bilayer: has the head group, inter-membrane space, above it is outer leaflet, bottom is inner leaflet.
Aggregations of numerous bilayers will form ?
What is the structure like?
What is the inside of the compartment called?
Vesicle. Basically a liposome (which mimics a cell). Liposome=vesicle.
Head group hydrophilic core, with surrounding hydrophobic middle made up of side chain tails, and then surrounded on the exterior by hydrophilic heads again.
Aqueous cavity.
The total concentration of lipid required to form a stable micelle?
Critical Micellar Concentration.
Used often in labs to isolate proteins from lipid membranes. Like with like compete. Ex. Detergent effect
What is the driving force of the formation of a phospholipid bilayer in an aqueous solution?
The hydrophobic interactions.
Driving force of membranes in our body.
When I have one of the phospholipid monomers in water, because of the dipole nature of water, what is immediately going to happen?
The bulk solvent water is now going to line up to form a cage. This leads to a decrease in entropy (not what nature likes) because the waters are now highly ordered.
When entropy decreases, what happens to delta G?
More negative.
Aka spontaneous
Hydrophobic reactions are referred to as an increase in ENTROPY by a decrease in the Water.
What does increased entropy mean?
Means that it favors the formation of a bilayer and delta G is negative more spontaneous.
Phospholipid monomer in an aqueous environment. Predicted H20 order? Predicted entropy? Predicted delta G? Will a bilayer form?
High H20 order.
Decreased entropy.
Positive delta G.
No it will not form yet.
Phospholipids in an aqueous environment. Predicted H20 order? Predicted entropy? Predicted delta G? Will a bilayer form?
Low order because more of the water is in the bulk solvent.
Increased entropy
Negative delta G
Yes bilayer will form.
What type of interactions are necessary for the formation of the PL bilayers of molecules, but more specifically contributes to the overall membrane stability?
Non-covalent interactions.
examples of noncovalent bonds are: H bonds between neutral groups (like PE and water)/peptide bonds. Ionic interactions of attraction (ex is amino group of PE with the carboxyl group of aspartate)/repulsion (PE with another positive aa like lysine), hydrophobic interactions, or van der waals (any two atoms in close proximity).
This type of interaction is due to induced dipoles.
What is the significant of having induced dipoles?
Van der waals
Induced dipoles can help stabilize the membrane.
What is so special about the van der waal’s forces?
They help stabilize the membrane via induced dipoles.
So obviously the hydrophobic interactions are the major driving force for the formation of the bilayer. The fatty acid chains hate water that much that they flip around and form a liposome which has an inner aqueous membrane surrounded by a bilayer. (Outer leaflet, inter-membrane space, and inner leaflet). Then within that is the inner aqueous space.
Where is the inner aqueous space located and what is housed in it?
There is an outer leaflet, inter-membrane space, inner leaflet, then the inner aqueous space is within all that.
In biological membranes, the nucleus, mitochondria, peroxisomes, and all that is.
What kind of bond is between PE and h20?
hydrogen bond.
From the partial negative of the N on the PE and the partial positive of the H’s on the H20. The H bond is between the polar head group and water.
What kind of bond is between two PL head groups, PC and PS?
And what type is it?
Ionic bond
Attraction.
What about PC and aspartate? (PL Head group and protein).
Same ionic and attraction?
Remember opposite charges attract, same charges repulse.
What kind of forces are between the fatty acid chains? (Of a liposome)
And what is the reason why they are there to begin with?
What do they do?
Van der waals.
They are there because of the induced dipoles.
They allow the close packing within the liposome, and will continue to do so until the electron orbitals overlap. Once they overlap they stop. The vanderwaal forces are weak but they are long because of the long carbon chains of the Fa’s. They essentially help Seal the membranes and prevent leakage, Even though they are weak. (Can be done in air, water, liposome etc).
What is the most stable artificial vesicle?
LIPOSOME
Because the membrane bilayers hydrophobic interactions like to pull on themselves to exclude water. And they have an aqueous environment inside too.
What are some of the advantages of an inner aqueous compartment/cavity?
In labs, can be used to deliver things to individuals or to transfect cells.
The liposomes are actually comprised of phospholipids , which the body sees an NORMal.
How can you use PL’s to deliver things to individuals?
Sonification. Gel filtration.
Well since the body sees liposomes as normal. We put phospholipids in beaker aqueous environment, and maybe have small aa’s like glycine, or different drugs of various genes. Then we sonificate it, basically using high frequencies of noise, and it causes the lipid to rise up, and now because of the hydrophobic interactions and noncovalent interactions, we get the formation of the liposomes. Within these liposomes we have the glycine trapped, which we can filter out, we can get a whole bunch of liposomes to contain what we want it to contain (drugs, dna, etc).
What is the significance of the liposome for drug delivery?
We can put a hydrophilic drug inside the aqueous cavity of a liposome which is surrounded by hydrophobic bilayers that can now enter places that it could not earlier because of it’s hydrophilic tendencies. We COULD also use hydrophobic drugs too, because we can store the hydrophobic lipid soluble drug within the hydrophobic bilayer of the liposome, or store both. You could also target it too.
Can you do targeting for liposomes?
Yes you can. You can make it go to where u want with targeting. Lets say someone has prostate cancer. and they were using a specific prostate antigen PSa. They will now put an antibody on that specific antigen that says, “go now to that particular cell, and once you get there to that cell, the antigen antibody will now bind to each other, cells fuse, and the drug will be delivered to the area of the body that you want it to be delivered. So basically, put drug in an environment that it likes within the liposome, put an antibody on it, target it, and tell it where to go.
Could integral proteins be enzymes?
Yes.
Could carbohydrates be added to proteins on a membrane?
Yes.
The ratio of lipids and protein within membranes is usually 1 for 1. Which exceptions are there?
Myelin in the neuronal regions (more lipid than protein). Because they are passive electrical insulators.
Inner mitochondrion more protein than lipid.
BUT OUTER mitochondrion is equal 1 for 1.
What are the 3 classes of lipids that membranes contain?
Phospholipids
Sphingolipids (glycolipids)
Cholesterol.