• Poster No.: 1P-131
  • Presentation time: September 9, 2014　13:00～14:00
  • Title: Studies on the effect of ionic liquids to ion channels incorporated into model cell membranes
  • Author(s): Hyunil Ryu1, Hwankyu Lee2, Iwata Seigo3, Young-Rok Kim4, Sangbaek Choi1, Maruta Shinsaku3, Sun Min Kim5, ○Tae-Joon Jeon1
    (1Dept. Biological Eng., Inha Univ., 2Dept. Chemical Eng., Dankook Univ., 3Dept. Bioinformatics, Soka Univ., 4Dept. Food Sci. & Biotechnol., Kyung Hee Univ., 5Dept. Mechanical Eng., Inha Univ.)

Abstract

Ionic liquids(ILs) have been accepted as an alternative green chemical that can replace organic solvent as they have unique properties such as non-volatility, non-explosiveness, high return yield, and high manipulability. However, bio-indegradability of ionic liquids may cause persistent problem with cells. Recently, it has been reported that the toxicity of ionic liquids affect diverse organisms. We believe that the impact on those cells is mainly caused by membrane disturbance. Membrane proteins, directly related to the survival of cells, are highly sensitive to membrane structure. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate effects of ionic liquids on membrane proteins. Hence, we chose gramicidin A (gA), a pore-protein that can represent most types of membrane proteins, to test the effects of ionic liquids on the membrane. The impact on gA of ILs were studied through fluorescence quenching method, utilizing stop-flow spectrometer, and electrophysiological method, utilizing axopatch amplifier. Our work suggests that ILs incorporate into cell membranes based on their hydrophobic alkyl chains, resulting in perturbation of lipid membrane structure. Moreover the efficiency of ILs increases as a function of both alkyl chain length and concentration. We anticipate that our research will contribute to establishing more biocompatible and greener ionic liquids.