Farfield Group Press Releases

30 Oct 2009 - Why do Bee Stings Hurt?

Why do Bee Stings Hurt?

Farfield has developed an application to better understand why bee stings hurt. Using their unique Dual Polarisation Interferometry (DPI) technology embodied in the Analight® 4D instrument range, the membrane – antimicrobial interaction can be studied. In this application the deconstruction of the peptide-lipid interactions, showing the cell disruption and disintegration can be followed in real time.

Cell lysing agents like melittin from honey bee venom induce the cell disruption and disintegration by attaching to the outside of cells then inducing holes in the membrane and destroying the cell.
Farfield’s unique DPI technology can measure the order and disorder of lipid membranes and can thus characterise the interaction with known or candidate antimicrobials. There is no need to infer the structure of a membrane bi-layer as do techniques which measure mass response alone since DPI can uniquely and directly measure thickness, density, mass and most importantly, the order of this interaction.

Hence using this measurement of order (often called birefringence) it is possible to determine when pores have formed and use the associated dimensional changes to corroborate the mechanism.

Read more in our application notes http://www.farfield-group.com/bio_mem.asp