AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition
    Fundamentals & Biological, Energy and Environmental Applications of Quartz Crystal Microbalance Focus Topic Thursday Sessions
       Session QC+AS+BI+MN-ThA

Invited Paper QC+AS+BI+MN-ThA1
Permeability of a Model Stratum Corneum Lipid Membrane

Thursday, November 13, 2014, 2:20 pm, Room 317

Session: Applications of QCM
Presenter: Daeyeon Lee, University of Pennsylvania
Correspondent: Click to Email

The stratum corneum (SC), composed of corneocytes and intercellular lipid membranes, is the outermost layer of the epidermis, and its main function is the regulation of water loss from the skin. The major components of the SC lipid membranes are ceramides (CER), cholesterol (CHOL), and free fatty acids (FFA), which are organized in multilamellar structures between corneocytes. The intercellular SC lipid membrane is believed to provide the main pathway for the transport of water and other substances through the skin. While changes in the composition of the SC lipid membranes due to intrinsic and/or extrinsic factors have been shown to affect the organization of the lipid molecules, little is known about the effect of compositional changes on their water permeability. In this talk, I will present our results on the effect of composition on the permeability of a model SC lipid membrane consisting of ceramide, palmitic acid, and cholesterol using a quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D). The QCM-D method enables the direct determination of the diffusivity (D), solubility (S), and permeability (P) of water through the model SC lipid membranes. In the first part, I will discuss the effect of membrane composition on the water permeability of the model SC lipid membrane. We find that D and S weakly depend on the chain length of saturated fatty acids, while P shows no significant dependence. In contrast, the saturation level of free fatty acids and the structure of ceramide have significant influence on D and S, respectively, resulting in significant changes in P. In the second part of the talk, I will present our recent work on the effect of common anionic surfactants on the water permeability of the model SC lipid membrane. Particularly, the effect of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES) with one or three ethoxy groups on the water permeability of the model SC lipid membrane is compared.