Biophysical Journal 34: 149-163 (1981)
© 1981 the Biophysical Society

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Electron transport across glycerol monooleate bilayer lipid membranes facilitated by magnesium etiochlorin.

ABSTRACT

The transport of electrons across biological membranes is believed to play an important role in many biophenomena. Although there have been many examples of systems which may be transporting electrons across Mueller-Rudin bilayer lipid membranes (blm), none has been well characterized. The system we describe here comprises a glycerol monooleate blm containing a magnesium etiochlorin (Mg-C) separating two aqueous phases each containing ferricyanide, ferrocyanide, KCl, and a platinum electrode. The E0s for the Mg-C+/Mg-C and ferri-/ferrocyanide couples are 0.22 and 0.24 V vs. SCE. Thus the MG-C+/Mb-C system is easily poised by the ferri-/ferrocyanide system. When the potentials of the ferri-/ferrocyanide couples are different on each side of the blm we show that the open-circuit membrane potential nearly equals the difference between the redox potentials. This is unequivocal evidence that electrons are being transferred across the blm from one aqueous phase to the other. On the basis of these experiments we deduce that electron transport is the major charge transport mechanism. When redox potentials are the same on each side of the blm, the conductance of the membrane can be greater than 10(-3) S/cm2. The conductance is proportional to the second power of the concentration of Mg-C in the membrane-forming mixture. A number of additional experiments are described which attempt to elucidate the mechanism of electron transfer. We believe that our data are consistent with the idea of an electron-hopping mechanism in which the transmembrane electron transport occurs by a series of second-order electron transfers between membrane-bound electron donors (Mg-C) and acceptors (Mg-C+). Alternative explanations are presented.