Influence of Saponins on Lipid Bilayers

皂苷在生命系统中有许多不同的作用。在大多数情况下，这些作用可能与皂苷与细胞膜的相互作用有关。由于这个原因，几十年来人们对皂甙进行了深入的研究。然而，尽管皂苷具有重要的药理作用，尽管对皂苷进行了大量的研究，但关于脂质、胆固醇和皂苷之间局部相互作用的信息却很少。本项目我们将利用中子自旋回波光谱研究不同脂质和皂苷在不同量胆固醇存在下的模型膜（囊泡）。准弹性实验将辅以小角和广角散射，旨在建立局部结构与双层弯曲弹性之间的关系。此外，光子相关光谱学和闪烁光谱学将用于在更大的长度和时间尺度上仔细研究膜的运动。我们旨在建立皂苷诱导的膜特性变化与已知的皂苷生物学效应之间的关系。

Saponins have a multitude of different effects in living systems. In most cases these effects can be related to the interaction of saponins with the cell membranes. For this reason saponins are studied intensely since many decades. However, despite the pharmacological importance and despite of the numerous studies on saponins information about the local interaction between lipids, cholestrol and saponins is scarce. The present project we will study model membranes (vesicle) made of different lipids and saponins in presence of different amounts of cholesterol by means of neutron spin-echo spectroscopy. The quasielastic experiments will be complemented by small angle and wide angle scattering aiming at establishing relations between local structure and bending elasticity of the bilayers. In addition photon correlation spectroscopy and flickering spectroscopy will be used to scrutinize the membrane motion on larger length and time scales. We are aiming at establishing a relationschip between saponin induced changes in membrane properties to the known biological effects of saponins.