Permeability of lipid membranes to dioxygen.

It is commonly supposed that dioxygen (O(2)) transport through biomembranes is ensured by the high permeability of a lipid bilayer in which O(2) diffusion mobility is close to that in water. However, the fact that microviscosity of lipid membranes is higher than that of water by two to three orders of magnitude speaks against this concept. Therefore, in this work we investigated the influence of surface lipid monolayers on oxygen diffusion flow directed from air to aqueous phase.