Disaccharide modulation of the mitochondrial membrane fluidity changes induced by the membrane potential
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Updated: Oct 5, 2026

Inner Mitochondrial Membrane Sensitivity to Na+ Reveals Partially Segmented Functional CoQ Pools
Published on: July 20, 2022
F Ricchelli1, M Camerin, C Beghetto
1CNR, Centro Metalloproteine, Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Padova, Italy. rchieppi@civ.bio.unipd.it
Abstract:
The influence of the medium composition on the dynamic properties of mitochondrial membranes on depolarization was studied by following the fluorescence anisotropy changes of mitochondria-bound 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene (DPH) and hematoporphyrin (HP) as reporters, respectively, of lipid and protein regions. On collapse of the potential, the membrane fluidity increased in NaCl-, KCl-, and monosaccharide-based media and decreased in disaccharides. Infrared spectroscopy experiments suggested that disaccharides likely change water's structure and association on the membrane surface. These results indicate that disaccharides induce membrane perturbation, which may interfere in the study of structure-function correlation in biological membranes.
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