INCORPORATION OF SOLUTES TO BILAYERS EVALUATED BY FLUORESCENCE SPECTROSCOPY TECHNIQUES

In this work a new procedure is proposed to evaluate partition constants of solutes in vesicles containing probes whose fluorescence polarization and/or generalized polarization are sensible to the environment fluidity. Partition constants of the additives are determined from the effect that they produce upon the properties of the probe fluorescence. This methodology, that can be applied to any solute that modifies membrane properties, is employed in the present work to evaluate the partition constants of three alkanols in large unilamellar vesicles of dioctadecyldimethylammonium chloride (DODAC). The same procedure can be applied to obtain partition constants in other lipidic aggregates such as micelles or biological membranes.