ON THE ROLE OF IMAGE CHARGE IN IONIC ELEC TROSTATIC INTERACTIONS OF PROTEINS AND MEMBRANES

The interaction of ions of electrolyte cytoplasm with the electric fie lds of image charges in adjacent dielectrics (membranes, proteins) was computed. The screening effect of neighbouring ions on the electric f ield of each image charge was taken into account. It is shown that the forces produced by these image charges are significant only at distan ces from dielectric surfaces that do not exceed three-four average dis tances between the charges in the cytoplasm. The forces and energies w ere computed with which liquid ions push away the surfaces of two adja cent membranes or proteins. It is shown that these values exceed hyndr eds times normal ionic-electrostatic interactions. The proposed approa ch taken it possible to explain the experimentally observed behaviour of on cell adhesion, the collective mode of protein interaction in pla sma membranes and other phenomena.