How Local Anesthetics affect the structural and dynamical properties of bio-membranes

To address the question of how local anesthetics influences the structural and dynamical properties of bio-membranes, neutron-spin echo spectroscopy (NSE) has been performed on 1,2-Dimyristoyl-sn-Glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DMPC) unilamellar vesicles (ULV) with different concentrations of Lidocaine in D2O to study the influence of Lidocaine on the bending elasticity of DMPC ULV bilayers in fluid crystal (L{\_}alpha) phase and the ripple gel (P{\_}beta') phase; The measurement of small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) has been performed to determine the bilayer thickness as a function of the concentration of Lidocaine. In the existence of molecules of Lidocaine the bending elasticity of DMPC bilayers was increased 30{\%} -100{\%} in L{\_}alpha phase. The NSE data confirmed that fluid crystal/ripple gel transition temperature of DMPC bilayers was depressed by the addition of local anesthetics, which has also been examined via differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).