par Valkenier, Hennie 
Référence WISC/vMASC workshop (1st: 6-8 September 2021: Cagliari, Italy)
Publication Non publié, 2021-09-07
Référence WISC/vMASC workshop (1st: 6-8 September 2021: Cagliari, Italy)
Publication Non publié, 2021-09-07
Communication à un colloque
| Résumé : | Transport of ions across membranes is crucial for many processes in biology and membrane proteins normally take care of transmembrane transport. Absence or malfunction of membrane proteins forming ion channels is the cause of several channelopathies, including cystic fibrosis, a disease characterised by a deficiency in transport of chloride and bicarbonate. Synthetic receptors for ions could be employed as transmembrane transporters to take over the function of these proteins. Such carriers extract the ion from the aqueous phase, move it across the apolar interior of the lipid bilayer while shielding its charge, to then release it on the other side of the membrane.1The number of transporters developed for chloride has increased rapidly over the past years.2 This can be partially attributed to the biological relevance of chloride transport, but also to the well-developed methodology to study the transport of this anion across the membranes of liposomes. Chloride transport can be studied either with a chloride selective electrode or with fluorescent probes such a lucigenin and HPTS.3,4 Transport of certain other anions and cations, such as bicarbonate and copper(I) has received much less attention, while their transport is also crucial for cells and tissues. Therefore, we have developed the methodology to study the transport of these ions by fluorescence spectroscopy. This involved the encapsulation of emissive probes inside liposomes and an optimisation of the conditions to allow both quantitative and mechanistic studies of the transmembrane transport process.5,6 In this lecture, I will give a tutorial on transmembrane transport studies, illustrated with some of our recent results. |
