Cellular membranes comprise amphiphilic constituents. Obviously, interaction will depend on polymer structure and membrane structure. One possibility is measuring membrane viscosity, but I found it rather difficult to realize (using DPH 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene). Fluorescent labeling is easy, but I find that the polymers of interest internalize to fast to study it by confocal microscopy.
If you think that's useful to use model celular membranes like liposomes, you can study the interaction between the polymers and liposomes by DSC or FTIR....
Dear Robert Luxenhofer,
The question looks to complex, studying interaction between polymer and drugs is too simple because these chemicals have unique peaks in DSC, IR, NMR but cell membrane quite impossible. Because, it degrade in high temperature (DSC and other techniques not possible) also cell membranes mostly have all functional groups in the chemical structure IR and NMR peaks looks too congested so, predicting interaction between cell functional groups with polymer quite difficult.
Following too methods will give better understanding between cell membrane and polymer.
1. Attaching FITC or other florescence agents in polymer incubating this conjugated polymers with cells and visualizing under Confocul microscope, it clearly indicates the interaction between cell surface and polymer, further interaction between polymer and cell surface can be determined by using molecular modeling techniques such as docking.
2. For Docking studies you should to know the receptor sites in the cell membrane. note each cell membranes have unique receptor sites. receptor structures can be downloaded from online library freely. After downloading u can perform docking and find the docking score value it gives clear idea between the interaction between receptor site and polymers. (note for docking studies usually drug is used also it have small molecular weight, so many software not suitable to polymers). You can use HEX software it is freely available. Also some paid software's available. For this u can refer my publications it gives basic idea. Here i studied polymer drug interaction. Instead of drug u can use receptor sites.
a. Palanirajan Vijayaraj Kumar, Ram Kumar Choudhary and Rakesh Narne, Efavirenz Loaded Novel Citric Acid Dendritic Architecture for Increased Solubility and Sustained Delivery, 2012, 1, 1-4
b. PALANIRAJAN VIJAYARAJ KUMAR, ABHAY ASTHANA, TATHAGATA DUTTA, &
NARENDRA K. JAIN Intracellular macrophage uptake of rifampicin loaded mannosylated dendrimers, Journal of Drug Targeting, September 2006; 14(8): 546–556
MicroCal VP-Capillary DSC System(GE) can be used to study the interaction of your desired protein with polymers/ligands.
As a follow up to Andre's answer, you may find the attached link helpful.
Article Interactions of Vanadocene(IV)-Chelated Complexes with Artif...
There are some physico-analytical technique which could be used to understand the interactions of polymers with lipid matrix models of cellular membranes depending upon the nature of interactions you wish to detect. ATR-FTIR, VP-DSC and 31P NMR are important techniques amongst them to understand the effect of the polymer on the membrane fluidization/stabilization. Both Steady state and dynamic Fluorescence studies can be performed using fluorophores to quantitatively assess the effect of the polymer on various regions of cellular assemblies. EPR will also allow you detect the location of the polymer within the cellular assemblies.
Good question. Since I work with surfactants, I have read some articles where the researchers have used atomic force microscopy to study the interactions between the surfactants and cell membranes. I am attaching a paper I had found very interesting as the author has used scanning electrochemical microscopy to study the interaction between Triton X-100 and a single Hela cell. I hope this helps.
Hi! In our lab. we are currently using mercury supported mono- and bi-layers as bimimetic models of cell membranes. You can find the description of our model just visiting my research gate site. We use electrochemical techniques to test their interaction with polypeptides, proteins or functionalized gold nanoparticles. I do not know if our system can be helpful for your pourpose but you can verify that and eventually contact me.
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