FTIR studies of vitamin E-cholesterol-DPPC membrane interactions in CH2 region

Binary and ternary mixtures of α-tocopherol (αT), cholesterol and dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine (DPPC) in the form of multilamellar liposomes have been investigated by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). Investigation of frequencies, bandwidths and band shapes of CH2 stretching and scissoring bands indicate that the effect of αT is dominant in comparison with cholesterol and αT decreases the interaction of cholesterol with phospholipid membranes. © Springer-Verlag 1996

Controlling complexity: the clinical relevance of mouse complex genetics.

Experimental animal models are essential to obtain basic knowledge of the underlying biological mechanisms in human diseases. Here, we review major contributions to biomedical research and discoveries that were obtained in the mouse model by using forward genetics approaches and that provided key insights into the biology of human diseases and paved the way for the development of novel therapeutic approaches

Estimation of protein secondary structure from FTIR spectra using neural networks.

Secondary structure of proteins have been predicted using neural networks (NN) from their Fourier transform infrared spectra. Leave-one-out approach has been used to demonstrate the applicability of the method. A form of cross-validation is used to train NN to prevent the overfitting problem. Multiple neural network outputs are averaged to reduce the variance of predictions. The networks realized have been tested and rms errors of 7.7% for alpha -helix, 6.4% for beta -sheet and 4.8% for turns have been achieved. These results indicate that the methodology introduced is effective and estimation accuracies are in some cases better than those previously reported in the literature

Using artificially generated spectral data to improve protein secondary structure prediction from Fourier transform infrared spectra of proteins.

Secondary structures of proteins have been predicted using neural networks from their Fourier transform infrared spectra. To improve the generalization ability of the neural networks, the training data set has been artificially increased by linear interpolation. The leave-one-out approach has been used to demonstrate the applicability of the method. Bayesian regularization has been used to train the neural networks and the predictions have been further improved by the maximum-likelihood estimation method. The networks have been tested and standard error of prediction (SEP) of 4.19% for alpha helix, 3.49% for beta sheet, and 3.15% for turns have been achieved. The results indicate that there is a significant decrease in the SEP for each type of structure parameter compared to previous works

Vibrational spectroscopy in diagnosis and screening

In recent years there has been a tremendous growth in the use of vibrational spectroscopic methods for diagnosis and screening. These applications range from diagnosis of disease states in humans, such as cancer, to rapid identification and screening of microorganisms. The growth in such types of studies has been possible thanks to advances in instrumentation and associated computational and mathematical tools for data processing and analysis. This volume of Advances in Biomedical Spectroscopy contains chapters from leading experts who discuss the latest advances in the application of Fourie

Effect of progesterone on DPPC membrane: Evidence for lateral phase separation and inverse action in lipid dynamics

Interactions of progesterone with zwitterionic dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine (DPPC) triultilamellar liposomes were investigated as a function of temperature and progesterone concentration by using three non-invasive techniques namely Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, turbidity at 440 nm, and differential scanning calorimetry. The results reveal that progesterone changes the physical properties of DPPC bilayers by decreasing the main phase-transition temperature, abolishing the pre-transition, broadening the phase-transition profile, disordering the system both in gel and liquid crystalline phase, increasing the dynamics at low concentrations whereas stabilizing the membrane at high concentrations, and inducing phase separation. Progesterone does not change the hydration of the C=O groups, while it strengthens the hydrogen bonding between the PO (2) over bar groups of lipids and the water molecules around. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

FTIR studies of vitamin D2-model membrane interactions

PubMed ID: 9388673[No abstract available

Tamoxifen Increases Membrane Fluidity at High Concentrations

There are contradictory results in the literature relating to the effect of tamoxifen on membrane fluidity. The present work investigates the effect of tamoxifen on membrane dynamics to find out whether the concentration of tamoxifen can be one of the factors in this discrepancy. Turbidity (absorbance at 440 nm) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic studies reveal that tamoxifen causes opposite effects on membrane fluidity at low (1 mol.%) and high (30 mol.%) tamoxifen concentrations. Low tamoxifen concentrations increase the absorbance in the gel and liquid crystalline phase, whereas high tamoxifen concentrations decrease the absorbance in gel and liquid crystalline phase, whereas tamoxifen concentrations decrease the absorbance. Observations on both phases show that the bandwidth of the CH2 stretching bands decreases with 1 mol.% tamoxifen and increases with 30 mol.% tamoxifen present, indicating a decrease in membrane fluidity at low tamoxifen concentrations and an increase in fluidity at high tamoxifen concentrations. It is seen that the apparent discrepancy in the literature on the effect of tamoxifen on membrane fluidity mainly arises from the tamoxifen concentration used and the confusion on the concept of lipid fluidity and lipid order.Wo