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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1982 Mar;79(6):1854–1858. doi: 10.1073/pnas.79.6.1854

Oxygen transport parameter in membranes as deduced by saturation recovery measurements of spin-lattice relaxation times of spin labels.

A Kusumi, W K Subczynski, J S Hyde
PMCID: PMC346079  PMID: 6952236

Abstract

Spin-lattice relaxation time (T1) measurements of nitroxide radical spin labels in membranes have been made by using the saturation-recovery technique. Stearic acid and sterol-type labels were used as probes of dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine liposomes from 0 degrees C to 36 degrees C. In the absence of oxygen, the range of variation of T1 over all samples and conditions is about a factor of 3. Heisenberg exchange between oxygen and spin labels is an effective T1 mechanism for the spin labels. The full range of variation of T1 in the presence of air is about a factor of 100. It is suggested that the oxygen transport parameter W = T1(-1) (air) - T1(-1) (N2) is a useful new monitor of membrane fluidity that reports on translational diffusion of small molecules. The values of W change at the prephase and main phase transitions and vary in complex ways. Arguments are advanced that the data are indicative of anisotropic translational diffusion of oxygen.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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