Neutrons in studies of phospholipid bilayers and bilayer–drug interaction. I. Basic principles and neutron diffraction

In our paper, we demonstrate several possibilities of using neutrons in pharmaceutical research with the help of examples of scientific results achieved at our University. In this first part, basic properties of neutrons and elementary principles of elastic scattering of thermal neutrons are described. Results of contrast variation neutron diffraction on oriented phospholipid bilayers with intercalated local anaesthetic or cholesterol demonstrate the potential of this method at determination of their position in bilayers. Diffraction experiments with alkan-1-ols located in the bilayers revealed their influence on bilayer thickness as a function of their alkyl chain length.