Effects of ionizing radiation on artificial (planar) lipid membranes. I. Radiation inactivation of the ion channel gramicidin A.

The ion channel formed by the pentadecapeptide gramicidin A in planar lipid membranes is extremely sensitive to ionizing radiation. The membrane conductance may drop by several orders of magnitude under appropriate experimental conditions (low pH and presence of oxygen). The radiation sensitivity is strongly reduced for gramicidin M-. This analogue has the four tryptophan residues replaced by phenylalanines. Experiments performed in the presence of various radical scavengers suggest that the inactivation of the channel is due to a combined action of OH and of HO2 radicals at the tryptophan residues. The shape of the inactivation curves following continuous radiolysis or pulse radiolysis were found to be in fair agreement with a simple model which assumes that the damage of a single tryptophan residue is sufficient for channel inactivation. The conductance of inactivated channels could not be resolved within the experimental accuracy. This is contrary to photolysis of gramicidin channels found by Busath and Waldbilling (1983), where a broad distribution of low conductance states was observed. The inactivation by radiolysis seems to represent an 'all-or-none-process' of the channel conductance.