Abstract
We are interested in transportation of Mg2+ across a lipid bilayer membrane because it plays an important role as a cofactor in many enzyme reactions. As a method of transporting substances across a lipid bilayer membrane, we chose a molecular umbrella which is an amphiphilic molecule, consisting of two or more cholic acid moieties and a central scaffold. Here we synthesized derivatives of Coumarin 343 which is a fluorescent probe of Mg2+ as a building block of a molecular umbrella. These Coumarin 343 derivatives carry a long alkyl chain or an alkylated triethylene glycol unit to be anchored in a vesicular mambrane. We estimated complex-formation constants of these lipophilic probes by means of absorption spectroscopy.
