Groups with polar characteristics can locate at both shallow and deep locations in membranes: the behavior of dansyl and related probes.

To understand the relationship between the chemical structure of polar molecules and their membrane location, the behavior of dansyl (dimethylaminonaphthalenesulfonyl) and related polar fluorescent probes was examined. The depth of these probes in lipid bilayers was determined by parallax analysis of fluorescence quenching [Chattopadhyay and London (1987) Biochemistry 26, 39-45; Abrams & London, Biochemistry (1993) 32, 10826-10831]. Quenching was measured for dansyl groups: (1) attached to the polar headgroup of PE, (2) linked to an alkyl chain, (3) attached to the end of a fatty acyl chain, and (4) attached to the polar headgroup of PE via a spacer group. In all cases, the dansyl probes located in the polar headgroup region, 19-21 A from the bilayer center. This shows the dansyl group has a strong tendency to seek a shallow location in the polar headgroup region. The only exception to this pattern was in the case of a dialkylated dansyl, for which two populations were observed. One population was at the polar headgroup level, but the second was deeply buried in the acyl chain region. To see if the polar sulfonamide group of dansyl influences depth, a structurally related probe substituting a thiocarbamoyl linkage, dimethylaminonaphthalenethiocarbamoyl (dantyl)-labeled PE, was synthesized. Dantyl groups were located deeper than dansyl groups, 13-16 A from the bilayer center. There was an even more dramatic difference in depth between dansyl and mansyl (methylanilinonaphthalenesulfonyl) derivatives. Mansyl probes, which have an extra phenyl group relative to dansyl, were found to locate deeply within the acyl chain region of the bilayer (6-7 A from the bilayer center) when attached to the polar headgroup of PE. Thus, the membrane location of polar groups depends strongly on the details of their chemical structure, and it is possible for a polar group to locate both at shallow and deep locations. These results suggest the energy to bury a polar moiety in the hydrophobic part of the bilayer is not prohibitively high. This contrasts to the behavior of charged groups, which appear to be restricted to shallow locations in membranes. In this report, the effect of populations at two different depths on the parallax analysis is also considered.