The DOI matches its Crossref record; 42 of the 44 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Permeation of protons, potassium ions, and small polar molecules through phospholipid bilayers as a function of membrane thickness
Open accessAbstract
Two mechanisms have been proposed to account for solute permeation of lipid bilayers. Partitioning into the hydrophobic phase of the bilayer, followed by diffusion, is accepted by many for the permeation of water and other small neutral solutes, but transient pores have also been proposed to account for both water and ionic solute permeation. These two mechanisms make distinctively different predictions about the permeability coefficient as a function of bilayer thickness. Whereas the solubility-diffusion mechanism predicts only a modest variation related to bilayer thickness, the pore model predicts an exponential relationship. To test these models, we measured the permeability of phospholipid bilayers to protons, potassium ions, water, urea, and glycerol. Bilayers were prepared as liposomes, and thickness was varied systematically by using unsaturated lipids with chain lengths ranging from 14 to 24 carbon atoms. The permeability coefficient of water and neutral polar solutes displayed a modest dependence on bilayer thickness, with an approximately linear fivefold decrease as the carbon number varied from 14 to 24 atoms. In contrast, the permeability to protons and potassium ions decreased sharply by two orders of magnitude between 14 and 18 carbon atoms, and leveled off, when the chain length was further extended to 24 carbon atoms. The results for water and the neutral permeating solutes are best explained by the solubility-diffusion mechanism. The results for protons and potassium ions in shorter-chain lipids are consistent with the transient pore model, but better fit the theoretical line predicted by the solubility-diffusion model at longer chain lengths.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Paula et al. [66] showed that the number of defects increased with decreasing membrane thickness, as might be expected.”
From The Role of Lipid Membranes in Life’s Origin (2017) · cites this paper as [66]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Phospholipids having 14 carbon chains were much leakier to protons and potassium ions that those with 16 and 18 carbon chains, which is the chain length that is optimal for today’s cells living at moderate temperature ranges.”
From The Role of Lipid Membranes in Life’s Origin (2017) · cites this paper as [66]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Evidence for the Formation of Symmetric and Asymmetric DLPC-DAPC Lipid Bilayer Domains
Ritter, M., Schmidt, S., Jakab, M., Paulmichl, M., & Henderson, R. M. (2013) · Cellular Physiology and Biochemistry · doi:10.1159/000350122 · Cited by 3,923
[10] Assay of inorganic phosphate, total phosphate and phosphatases
Ames, B. N. (1966) · Methods in enzymology on CD-ROM/Methods in enzymology · doi:10.1016/0076-6879(66)08014-5 · Cited by 3,338
Pimentel, G. C., McClellan, A. L., & Hayward, R. (1960) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 3,219
PARSEGIAN, A. (1969) · Nature · doi:10.1038/221844a0 · Cited by 854
Simulation of water transport through a lipid membrane
Marrink, . J., & Berendsen, H. J. C. (1994) · The Journal of Physical Chemistry · doi:10.1021/j100066a040 · Cited by 844
Lipid bilayer thickness varies linearly with acyl chain length in fluid phosphatidylcholine vesicles
Lewis, B. A., & Engelman, D. M. (1983) · Journal of Molecular Biology · doi:10.1016/s0022-2836(83)80007-2 · Cited by 786
Ionic hydration in chemistry and biophysics
Friedman, H. (1982) · Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry · doi:10.1016/0022-0728(82)87097-6 · Cited by 522
Phase equilibria and structure of dry and hydrated egg lecithin
SMALL, D. M. (1967) · Journal of Lipid Research · doi:10.1016/s0022-2275(20)38874-x · Cited by 463
Ionic Hydration in Chemistry and Biophysics
Conway, B. E. (1981) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 455
Water movement through lipid bilayers, pores, and plasma membranes : theory and reality
Finkelstein, A. (1987) · Cited by 432
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Voltage-Gated Proton Channels and Other Proton Transfer Pathways
DeCoursey, T. E. (2003) · Physiological Reviews · doi:10.1152/physrev.00028.2002 · Cited by 735
Template-directed synthesis of a genetic polymer in a model protocell
Mansy, S. S., Schrum, J. P., Krishnamurthy, M., Tobé, S., Treco, D. A., & Szostak, J. W. (2008) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature07018 · Cited by 684
Volkov, A. G., Paula, S., & Deamer, D. W. (1997) · Bioelectrochemistry and Bioenergetics · doi:10.1016/s0302-4598(96)05097-0 · Cited by 670
Self-citationStructure and mechanism of ABC transporters
Wilkens, S. (2015) · F1000Prime Reports · doi:10.12703/p7-14 · Cited by 651
Computer simulation study of fullerene translocation through lipid membranes
Wong-ekkabut, J., Baoukina, S., Triampo, W., Tang, I., Tieleman, D. P., & Monticelli, L. (2008) · Nature Nanotechnology · doi:10.1038/nnano.2008.130 · Cited by 506
“Fullerene permeability is 6 × 1−2 cm s at 300 K, higher than for wate”
Metadata
- Authors
- Paula, S., Volkov, A. G., Van Hoek, A. N., Haines, T. H., & Deamer, D. W.
- Affiliations
- City University of New York (US)
- Corresponding author
- Paula, S.
- Venue
- Biophysical Journal
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1996-01
- Volume
- 70
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 339-348
- ISSN
- 0006-3495 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC1224932
- OpenAlex
- W2019036104
- Cited by
- 578
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 30 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 27 · 2014: 26 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 22
- FWCI
- 5.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Biophysical Journal (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Lipid Membrane Structure and Behavior
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Ion Transport and Channel Regulation
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Nanopore and Nanochannel Transport Studies
- Keywords
- membrane permeability, phospholipid bilayers, membrane thickness, proton permeation, potassium ion permeation, water permeation, urea, glycerol, unsaturated lipids, chain length, liposomes, permeability coefficient
- MeSH terms
- Biophysics, Diffusion, Glycerol, Lipid Bilayers, Models, Chemical, Permeability, Phospholipids, Potassium, Protons, Solubility, Urea, Water, Biophysical Phenomena
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
