Air-water interface is an excellent model for the lipidmembrane, allowing forin vitro compound profiling.

Amphiphilicity profiling

Lipid bilayers are the barriers for the passive entry of drugs into cells. The key is to identify the compounds that will pass through the lipid membrane.

Air/water interface represents a good model for the lipid membrane:

Amphiphilic molecules are highly oriented both in the lipid membrane and in the air/water interface.

Studying the behavior of molecules (using Gibbs adsorption isotherm model) in the air/water interface correlates precisely to their behavior in lipid membranes.

> By in vitro amphilicity profiling of drugs at an air/water interface vital properties are obtained, that predict the ability or probability of the compound to pass passively through the cell membrane.