Monitoring Biophysical Properties of Lipid Membranes by Environment-Sensitive Fluorescent Probes

We review the main trends in the development of fluorescence probes to obtain information about the structure, dynamics, and interactions in biomembranes. These probes are efficient for studying the microscopic analogs of viscosity, polarity, and hydration, as well as the molecular order, environment relaxation, and electrostatic potentials at the sites of their location. Progress is being made in increasing the information content and spatial resolution of the probe responses. Multichannel environment-sensitive probes that can distinguish between different membrane physicochemical properties through multiple spectroscopic parameters show considerable promise.