Eur. Phys. J. E (2016) 39: 123
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2016-16123-5

Regular Article

Nanostructural determination of a lipid bilayer tethered to a gold substrate

¹ TIMC/IMAG, Université Grenoble Alpes, (UMR 5525), Grenoble, France
² Los Alamos National Laboratory, 87545, Los Alamos, NM, USA
³ SDx Tethered Membranes Pty Ltd u6 30-32, Barcoo Street, 2069, Roseville, NSW, Australia

^* e-mail: marco.maccarini@imag.fr

Received: 3 August 2016
Accepted: 23 November 2016
Published online: 15 December 2016

Abstract

Tethered lipid bilayer membranes (tBLM) are planar membranes composed of free lipids and molecules tethered to a solid planar substrate providing a useful model of biological membranes for a wide range of biophysical studies and biotechnological applications. The properties of the tBLM depend on the free lipids and on the chemistry of the tethering molecules. We present a nanoscale characterization of a tBLM composed of deuterated 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (d-DMPC) free lipids, benzyl disulfide undecaethylene glycol phytanol (DLP) tethering molecules, and benzyl disulfiide tetraethylene glycol polar spacer molecules (PSM) used to control the areal density of tethering molecules through coadsorption. The use of selected isotopic substitution provides a way to distinguish the conformation and location of the tethered lipids from the free lipids and to elucidate how the two components influence the structure of the tBLM. These findings provide useful information to optimise the insertion of transmembrane proteins into the tethered bilayer system.