Micelle-to-vesicle transition technique applied to investigate the effect of the insecticide acephate on lipid bilayers

• Grant number: 18/23123-4
• Support type: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Effective date (Start): March 01, 2019
• Effective date (End): August 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Condensed Matter Physics
• Principal researcher: Carlos José Leopoldo Constantino
• Grantee: Luis Fernando Do Carmo Morato
• Supervisor abroad: Livia Giotta
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Presidente Prudente. Presidente Prudente , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Università del Salento, Italy
• Associated to the scholarship: 18/01984-8 - Effects of acephate insecticide in simple models of lipid membrane based on Langmuir films and GUVs: molecular level interactions and morphological effects, BP.MS

Abstract

Mimetic systems of cellular membrane are widely used as alternative technique to study interactions that are difficult to be carried out in vivo and in vitro studies. This project has as main objective the study of interactions between acephate - an insecticide which has toxic potentials - and lipid vesicles (bilayers) formed by micelle-to-vesicle transition (MVT), a simple and convenient technique. The vesicles will be composed by five different lipids, which are DPPC (a zwitterionic phospholipid) and four other ones that share chemical groups in their heads, but have the same alkyl chain: DODAB, DHP, DPTAP and DPPA. These lipid supramolecular structures will be assembled in presence and absence of the pesticide, and characterized by UV-visible/NIR (ultraviolet-visible/near infrared) spectroscopy, Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, and DLS (Dynamic Light Scattering). (AU)