In situ formation and characterization of poly(ethylene glycol)-supported lipid bilayers on gold surfaces

Inclusion of a polymer cushion between a lipid bilayer membrane and a solid surface has been suggested as a means to provide a soft, deformable layer that will allow for transmembrane protein insertion and mobility. In this study, mobile, tethered lipid bilayers were formed on a poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) support via a two-step adsorption process. The PEG films were prepared by coadsorbing a heterofunctional, telechelic PEG lipopolymer (1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine-N-poly(ethylene glycol)-2000-N-[3-(2-(pyridyldithio)propionate]) (DSPE-PEG-PDP) and a nonlipid functionalized PEG-PDP from an ethanol/water mixture, as described in a previous paper (Munro, J. C.; Frank, C. W. Langmuir 2004, 20, 3339-3349). Then a two-step lipid adsorption strategy was used. First, lipids were adsorbed onto the PEG support from a hexane solution. Second, vesicles were adsorbed and fused on the surface to create a bilayer in an aqueous environment. Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching experiments show that this process results in mobile bilayers with diffusion coefficients on the order of 2 microm2/s. The mobility of the bilayers is decreased slightly by increasing the density of tethered lipids. The formation of bilayers, and not multilayer structures, is also confirmed by surface plasmon resonance, which was used to determine in situ film thickness, and by fluorimetry, which was used to determine quantitatively the fluorescence intensity for each 18 by 18 mm sample. Unfortunately, fluorescence microscopy also shows that there are large defects on the samples, which limits the utility of this system.