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Updated: Jun 20, 2026

Assembly of Cell Mimicking Supported and Suspended Lipid Bilayer Models for the Study of Molecular Interactions
Published on: August 3, 2021
Silica xerogel/aerogel-supported lipid bilayers: consequences of surface corrugation
Emel I Goksu1, Matthew I Hoopes, Barbara A Nellis
1Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Abstract:
The objective of this paper was to review our recent investigations of silica xerogel and aerogel-supported lipid bilayers. These systems provide a format to observe relationships between substrate curvature and supported lipid bilayer formation, lipid dynamics, and lipid mixtures phase behavior and partitioning. Sensitive surface techniques such as quartz crystal microbalance and atomic force microscopy are readily applied to these systems. To inform current and future investigations, we review the experimental literature involving the impact of curvature on lipid dynamics, lipid and phase-separated lipid domain localization, and membrane-substrate conformations and we review our molecular dynamics simulations of supported lipid bilayers with the atomistic and molecular information they provide.

