ABSTRACT
A fast, quantitative, and unambiguous screening of material properties of biomembranes using scanning force microscopy in pulsed force mode on lipid membranes is presented. The spatially resolved study of breakthrough force, breakthrough distance, adhesion, stiffness, and topography of lipid membranes as determined simultaneously by digitalized pulsed force mode provides new insight into the structure-function relationship of model membranes, which are systematically analyzed by varying chain length, lipid headgroup, and lamellarity. For this purpose, a novel unbiased analysis method is presented. A strong correlation between adhesion and breakthrough events is found on lipid bilayers and multilayers and discussed in terms of structural stability and chemical and physical interactions. Our findings indicate that multilamellar 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoserine is mechanically strengthened with respect to material failure by calcium ions in solution.
Subject(s)
Lipid Bilayers/chemistry , Liposomes/chemistry , Materials Testing/methods , Membrane Fluidity , Micromanipulation/methods , Microscopy, Atomic Force/methods , Elasticity , Macromolecular Substances , Membranes, Artificial , Molecular Conformation , Motion , Stress, Mechanical , Structure-Activity RelationshipABSTRACT
Phase separation of glycolipids in lipid mono- and bilayers is of great interest for the understanding of membrane function. The distribution of the ganglioside GM1 in sphingomyelin (SM)/1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl- sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC), SM/1,2-dipalmitoyl- sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC) and SM/cholesterol/POPC Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) monolayers transferred at 36 mN/m has been studied by scanning force microscopy. Besides lateral organization of the glycolipid in LB monolayers as deduced from topography, material properties have been investigated by phase imaging, pulsed force mode and force modulation microscopy. It was shown that GM1 preferentially clusters in an ordered lipid matrix, i.e. the SM phase in the case of the SM/POPC and SM/DOPC mixture or in the ordered phase of POPC/SM/cholesterol monolayers. At higher local concentrations, three-dimensional protrusions enriched in GM1 occur, which may represent a precursor for the formation of micelles budding into the aqueous subphase. Electronic supplementary material to this paper can be obtained by using the Springer Link server located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00249-002-0232-4.
