Nanomechanics of phospholipid LB film studied layer by layer with AFM

Heads or tails: Nanostructure and molecular orientations in organised erucamide surface layers

HYPOTHESIS

Despite the widespread industrial usage of erucamide as a slip additive to modify polymer surface properties, a controversy appears to have persisted regarding the nanostructure of erucamide surface layers, particularly the molecular orientation at the outermost layer. The erucamide nanostructure and molecular orientation, along with its surface coverage, hydrophobicity, and adhesive response, can be tuned by simply varying the erucamide concentration in the solution from which the spin coated layer is prepared.

EXPERIMENTS

Synchrotron X-ray reflectivity (XRR) allowed a comprehensive characterisation of the out-of-plane structural parameters (e.g. molecular packing and thickness) of the erucamide layers prepared via spin coating from nonaqueous solution on silica. Complementary Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) imaging with high lateral resolution revealed localised in-plane structures. Contact angle measurements provided information on the wettability of erucamide-coated surfaces. Peak Force Quantitative Nanomechanical Mapping (QNM) allowed a correlation between the erucamide nanostructure with the surface nanomechanical properties (i.e. adhesive response).

FINDINGS

Our results reveal erucamide surface nanostructures on silica as patchy monolayers, isolated circular bilayers/rounded rectangle-like aggregates and overlapping plate-like multilayers as the erucamide concentration in the spin coating solution was varied. In all the cases, XRR and AFM results were consistent with the picture that the erucamide tails were oriented outwards. The QNM adhesion force mapping of all the observed morphologies also supported this molecular orientation at the outermost erucamide monolayer. The wettability study further confirmed this conclusion with the observed increase in the surface hydrophobicity and coverage upon increasing erucamide concentration, with the macroscopic water contact angle θ = 92.9° ± 2.9° at the highest erucamide concentration of 2 wt%.

Mechanical properties of the high cholesterol-containing membrane: An AFM study

Cholesterol (Chol) content in most cellular membranes does not exceed 50 mol%, only in the eye lens's fiber cell plasma membrane, its content surpasses 50 mol%. At this high concentration, Chol induces the formation of pure cholesterol bilayer domains (CBDs), which coexist with the surrounding phospholipid-cholesterol domain (PCD). Here, we applied atomic force microscopy to study the mechanical properties of Chol/phosphatidylcholine membranes where the Chol content was increased from 0 to 75 mol%, relevant to eye lens membranes. The surface roughness of the membrane decreases with an increase of Chol content until it reaches 60 mol%, and roughness increases with a further increment in Chol content. We propose that the increased roughness at higher Chol content results from the formation of CBDs. Force spectroscopy on the membrane with Chol content of 50 mol% or lesser exhibited single breakthrough events, whereas two distinct puncture events were observed for membranes with the Chol content greater than 50 mol%. We propose that the first puncture force corresponds to the membranes containing coexisting PCD and CBDs. In contrast, the second puncture force corresponds to the "CBD water pocket" formed due to coexisting CBDs and PCD. Membrane area compressibility modulus (K_A) increases with an increase in Chol content until it reaches 60 mol%, and with further increment in Chol content, CBDs are formed, and K_A starts to decrease. Our results report the increase in membrane roughness and decrease K_A at very high Chol content (>60 mol%) relevant to the eye lens membrane.

Toward More Free-Floating Model Cell Membranes: Method Development and Application to Their Interaction with Nanoparticles

Identifying the mechanisms of nanoparticle (NP) interactions with cell membranes is key to understanding potential NP cytotoxicity and applications as nanocarriers for targeted drug delivery. To elucidate these mechanisms of interaction, supported phospholipid bilayers (SPBs) are commonly used as models of cell membranes. However, SPBs are soft thin films, and, as such, their properties can be significantly affected by the underlying substrate. Free-floating cell membranes would be best modeled by weakly adhered SPBs; thus, we propose a method for tailoring the interfacial interaction of an electrically charged SPB-substrate system based on modulations in the solution chemistry. Using the dissipation signal of the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D), we show that the method can be used to tailor SPB-substrate interactions without the loss of its structural integrity. To demonstrate the application of the method, SPBs are exposed to cationic and anionic polystyrene latex NPs. These studies reveal that the bilayer response to the modulations in the interfacial interaction with its underlying substrate can be used as a sensitive tool to probe the integrity of SPBs upon exposure to NPs. As expected, anionic NPs tend to impart no significant damage to the anionic bilayers, whereas cationic NPs can be detrimental to bilayer integrity. This is the first report of a QCM-D based method to probe bilayer integrity following exposure to NPs. Importantly, the degree of SPB interaction with its underlying substrate is shown to be a critical factor in the kinetics of bilayer disruption by cationic NPs, whereby weakly adhered bilayers are prone to significantly faster breakup. Since free-floating cell membranes are better represented by a weakly adhered SPB, the results of this work critically influence paradigms in experimental studies involving SPBs as models for cell membranes.