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Updated: Jul 19, 2026

Assembly of Cell Mimicking Supported and Suspended Lipid Bilayer Models for the Study of Molecular Interactions
Published on: August 3, 2021
Surface sticking and lateral diffusion of lipids in supported bilayers
Thomas Dertinger1, Iris von der Hocht, Ales Benda
1Institute for Biological Information Processing I, Forschungszentrum Jülich, D-52425 Jülich, Germany.
Abstract:
The diffusion of fluorescently labeled lipids in supported bilayers is studied using two different methods: Z-scan fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (z-scan FCS) and two-focus fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (2f-FCS). It is found that the data can be fitted consistently only when taking into account partial sticking of the labeled lipids to the supporting glass surface. A kinetic reaction-diffusion model is developed and applied to the data. We find a very slow sticking rate which, however, when neglected, leads to strongly varying estimates of the free diffusion coefficient. The study reveals a strong sensitivity of FCS on even slight binding/unbinding kinetics of the labeled molecules, which has significance for related diffusion measurements in cellular lipid membranes.
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