Influence of nanotopography on phospholipid bilayer formation on silicon dioxide

We have investigated the effect of well-defined nanoscale topography on the 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC) lipid vesicle adsorption and supported phospholipid bilayer (SPB) formation on SiO2 surfaces using a quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Unilamellar lipid vesicles with two different sizes, 30 and 100 nm, were adsorbed on pitted surfaces with two different pit diameters, 110 and 190 nm, as produced by colloidal lithography, and the behavior was compared to results obtained on flat surfaces. In all cases, complete bilayer formation was observed after a critical coverage of adsorbed vesicles had been reached. However, the kinetics of the vesicle-to-bilayer transformation, including the critical coverage, was significantly altered by surface topography for both vesicle sizes. Surface topography hampered the overall bilayer formation kinetics for the smaller vesicles, but promoted SPB formation for the larger vesicles. Depending on vesicle size, we propose two modifications of the precursor-mediated vesicle-to-bilayer transformation mechanism used to describe supported lipid bilayer formation on the corresponding flat surface. Our results may have important implications for various lipid-membrane-based applications using rough or topographically structured surfaces.