Effects of metal ions on the conformation of polar headgroup of sphingomyelin bilayer

摘要

With the wide application of rare earth in agriculture, medicament, especially the application of Gd-DTPA as nuclear magnetic resonance image reagent in clinical prac-tice, the studies on the toxicology in biological body, as well as the study on theuse as informative probes instead of divalent calcium ion in biological and biochemical research have attracted intensive concern. Phospholipids bilayers have served as a model of biomembrane in the last two decades. The effects of metal ions on the conformation of polar headgroup of dipalmi-toylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) bilayers have been reported. Sphingomyelin is a major component of several biological tissues such as brain and nerve cells and has identical polar headgroup to DPPC. The interaction of metal ions with sphingomyelin bilayer remains nonrevealed. This note presents the results of the study on this aspect.