CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Uppal Road, Hyderabad, 500 007, India.
J Membr Biol. 2022 Jun;255(2-3):363-369. doi: 10.1007/s00232-022-00240-2. Epub 2022 May 19.
The molecular mechanism behind the action of local anesthetics is not well understood. Phenylethanol (PEtOH) is an ingredient of essential oils with a rose-like odor, and it has previously been used as a local anesthetic. In this work, we explored the effect of PEtOH on dipole potential in membranes representing biologically relevant phases, employing the dual-wavelength ratiometric method utilizing the potential-sensitive probe di-8-ANEPPS. Our results show that PEtOH reduces membrane dipole potential in membranes of all biologically relevant phases (gel, liquid-ordered, and fluid) in a concentration-dependent manner. To the best of our knowledge, these results constitute one of the early reports describing reduction of membrane dipole potential induced by local anesthetics, irrespective of membrane phase.
局部麻醉剂作用的分子机制尚不清楚。苯乙醇（PEtOH）是一种具有玫瑰香味的精油成分，曾被用作局部麻醉剂。在这项工作中，我们使用双波长比率法，利用电位敏感探针 di-8-ANEPPS，研究了 PEtOH 对代表生物相关相的膜中偶极势的影响。我们的结果表明，PEtOH 以浓度依赖的方式降低所有生物相关相（凝胶相、有序液相和流动相）中膜的偶极势。据我们所知，这些结果构成了早期描述局部麻醉剂诱导的膜偶极势降低的报告之一，而与膜相无关。
