PROMISCUOUS LIGANDS AND ATTRACTIVE CAVITIES

A proposed anesthetic mechanism that includes contributions from both the lipid bilayer and membrane proteins. Halothane (consisting of the larger, colored spheres), a typical inhaled anesthetic haloalkane, localizes preferentially to the amphiphilic regions (shown as small, colored spheres) of the bilayer (in which the acyl side chains are shown as ball-and-stick strands) in this molecular dynamics simulation; the aqueous milieu is represented at the upper and lower peripheries of the red box. [Reproduced with permission; Koubi, L. et.al., Biophysical Journal 78, 800–811 (2000).] This non-uniform distribution makes it likely that the lateral pressure profile will be altered.