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Biomedical subjects

C Henriques de Jesus

Publications and source records attributed to C Henriques de Jesus.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

A molecular basis for an irreversible thermodynamic description on non-electrolyte permeation through lipid bilayers.

The non-electrolyte permeability of liposomal membranes has been investigated according to the concepts of irreversible thermodynamics. A strong interaction between the permeation of solute and water was observed. This solute-solvent interaction can be fully described by assuming that a number of water molecules will copermeate with each molecule of solute. This number of copermeating water molecules is independent of the nature of the permeant and of temperature, but depends on the osmotic concentration of impermeants inside the liposomes.

Glucose

Non-electrolyte permeability as a tool for studying membrane fluidity.

1. The reflection coefficient for the permeation of thiourea through bilayers of phosphatidylcholine is a function of the fatty-acid composition of the lipid molecules. By means of these reflection coefficients an index for membrane fluidity has been given to each of those lipids, relative to that of egg phosphatidylcholine. 2. The maximum number of water molecules that can copermeate with each molecule of solute by means of solute-solvent interaction is a function of the packing of the lipid molecules in the bilayer. This parameter has been used in this paper for characterizing the fluidity of cholesterol-containing membranes and for membranes with their lipids in the gel state.

Chemical Phenomena

Short-circuit current and total conductance measurements on rabbit ileum.

1. Short-curcuit current (SCC) and total conductance (Gt) measurements were made in in vitro preparations of rabbit terminal ileum. 2. Successive additions of D-glucose increased the SCC and Gt in a stepwise way and both effects were seen to correlate linearly. 3. Measurements of SCC ant Gt were also made after replacing Na in the Krebs solution by K or sucrose. The SCC decreased to nearly zero in both cases but the decrease in Gt was larger when sucrose was used. 4. SCC and Gt were monitored after the addition of ouabain. SCC decreased to nearly zero but Gt remained constant. 5. On successive additions of sucrose after the preparation was mounted in 1/4 Na Krebs without osmolal compensation, SCC decreased and Gt increased, a linear relationship being found between both changes. 6. Successive additions of 2-deoxy-td-glucose caused a stepwise decrease of SCC and an increase in Gt. These effects seemed independent of the presence of glucose. 7. A model in which a resistance in series is added to the basic model by Ussing & Windhager (1964), modified by Rose & tschultz (1971), is proposed to account for these findings.

Animals