110 Years of the Meyer–Overton Rule: Predicting Membrane Permeability of Gases and Other Small Compounds

Abstract

The transport of gaseous compounds across biological membranes is essential in all forms of life. Although it was generally accepted that gases freely penetrate the lipid matrix of biological membranes, a number of studies challenged this doctrine as they found biological membranes to have extremely low gas-permeability values. These observations led to the identification of several membrane-embedded "gas" channels, which facilitate the transport of biological active gases, such as carbon dioxide, nitric oxide, and ammonia. However, some of these findings are in contrast to the well-established solubility-diffusion model (also known as the Meyer-Overton rule), which predicts membrane permeabilities from the molecule's oil-water partition coefficient. Herein, we discuss recently reported violations of the Meyer-Overton rule for small molecules, including carboxylic acids and gases, and show that Meyer and Overton continue to rule.

Interfacial electronic effects in functional biolayers integrated into organic field-effect transistors

“…The phosphatidylcholine PLs are one of the major components in all cell membranes and are permeable to volatile anesthetics (25). The PM, taken from the cell membrane of the bacterium Halobacterium salinarum, is constituted of a PL bilayer including the sole bacteriorhodopsin (bR) protein (1).…”

“…In the case of PLs, their interaction with anesthetic molecules has been studied since the discovery that anesthetics effectiveness correlates with their own lipophilicity (Meyer-Overton rule) (25). Hypotheses on the general anesthesia mechanism involving anesthetics interactions with PL membranes as well as with the protein hydrophobic regions have been formulated (35); among others, also PMs are known to be sensitive to anesthetics (28).…”

Development and evaluation of a mechanistic bioconcentration model for ionogenic organic chemicals in fish

“…According to Overton's rule [38,41], membrane permeation rates (i.e., transcellular passive diffusion) of neutral organic compounds are a function of the diffusivity of the chemical in the organic phase and the partition coefficient between the aqueous and organic phase, often represented by K OW,N . Membrane permeation rates of the charged form of IOCs are expected to be orders of magnitude lower.…”

No facilitator required for membrane transport of hydrogen sulfide

“…Although there is little doubt that they facilitate the membrane transport of NH 3 (18), the contribution of aquaporins to NO, CO 2 , or O 2 transport is under debate (19)(20)(21)(22)(23). At the same time as the permeability of P M,CO 2 ϭ 3.2 cm/s allows CO 2 to pass membranes freely (22), the NH 3 permeability P M,NH 3 ϭ 0.016 cm/s (24) indicates that a cholesterol-containing epithelial membrane acts as a barrier and, consequently, that membrane channels (aquaporin-8) facilitate NH 3 diffusion (18).…”