Surface activities of tertiary amine local anesthetics at air/water interface in the presence and absence of phospholipid monolayers.

Adsorption of procaine and tetracaine to the dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine monolayers at the air/water interface is analyzed in terms of two types of interaction: (1) between the phospholipid molecules and the ligand molecules, and (2) among the ligand molecules themselves. The presence of the phospholipid monolayer increases the surface concentration of the anesthetics. The interaction energy, omega AB, between the phospholipid molecules and the anesthetic molecules at the interface accounts for this excess adsorption. The values were --2.95 kT for procaine and --2.99 kT for tetracaine where k is the Boltzmann constant and T = 298 K. The adsorption of the local anesthetics to the interface was cooperative. The interaction energy, omega AA, between the anesthetics molecules on the surface determines the cooperativity. The values were --0.056 kT for procaine and --0.397 kT for tetracaine, where T = 298 K. This parameter determines the slope of the curve plotted relating the surface concentration (gamma) and the logarithm of the bulk concentration (log C). When (omega AA/kT) greater than or equal to 1, the adsorption follows the phase-transition. A parameter KA, which is related to the difference of the free energy of anesthetics between the surface and the bulk molecules, locates the take-off point of the adsorption curve at the log C axis. The values were 2.15 x 10(3) for procaine and 7.00 x 10(3) for tetracaine. In spite of the general assumption that the difference in the clinical potency among local anesthetics are attributable to their lipid solubility, the present results showed that the phospholipid-anesthetic interaction energies for procaine and tetracaine were similar. The larger surface concentration of tetracaine than procaine at the same bulk concentration was due to the combined effect of KA and omega AA. KA represents the tendency of the anesthetic molecules to escape from the hydrogen-bonded water phase, and omega AA determines the cooperativity factor causing these molecules to aggregate at the interface. It was also observed that the charged forms of the anesthetics have non-zero surface activities.