Sharma V K, Mukhopadhyay R
Solid State Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, 400085, India.
Biophys Rev. 2018 Jun;10(3):721-734. doi: 10.1007/s12551-018-0410-y. Epub 2018 Mar 16.
Ionic liquids (ILs) are a special class of low-temperature (typically < 100 °C) molten salts, which have huge upsurge interest in the field of chemical synthesis, catalysis, electrochemistry, pharmacology, and biotechnology, mainly due to their highly tunable nature and exceptional properties. However, practical uses of ILs are restricted mainly due to their adverse actions on organisms. Understanding interactions of ILs with biomembrane is prerequisite to assimilate the actions of these ionic compounds on the organism. Here, we review different biophysical methods to characterize interactions between ILs and phospholipid membrane, a model biomembrane. All these studies indicate that ILs interact profoundly with the lipid bilayer and modulate the structure, microscopic dynamics, and phase behavior of the membrane, which could be the fundamental cause of the observed toxicity of ILs. Effects of ILs on the membrane are found to be strongly dependent on the lipophilicity of the IL and are found to increase with the alkyl chain length of IL. This can be correlated with the observed higher toxicity of IL with the longer alkyl chain length. These informations would be useful to tune the toxicity of IL which is required in designing environment-friendly nontoxic solvents of the so-called green chemistry for various practical applications.
离子液体（ILs）是一类特殊的低温（通常<100°C）熔融盐，在化学合成、催化、电化学、药理学和生物技术领域引起了极大的关注，这主要归因于它们具有高度可调节的性质和特殊性能。然而，离子液体的实际应用主要因其对生物体的不利作用而受到限制。了解离子液体与生物膜的相互作用是理解这些离子化合物对生物体作用的前提。在此，我们综述了用于表征离子液体与磷脂膜（一种模型生物膜）之间相互作用的不同生物物理方法。所有这些研究表明，离子液体与脂质双层发生深度相互作用，并调节膜的结构、微观动力学和相行为，这可能是观察到的离子液体毒性的根本原因。发现离子液体对膜的影响强烈依赖于离子液体的亲脂性，并随着离子液体烷基链长度的增加而增大。这与观察到的烷基链长度较长的离子液体具有更高毒性相关。这些信息对于调节离子液体的毒性很有用，这在为各种实际应用设计所谓绿色化学的环境友好型无毒溶剂时是必需的。
