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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Phase Behavior of Charged Vesicles Under Symmetric and Asymmetric Solution Conditions Monitored with Fluorescence Microscopy
Published on: October 24, 2017
Temperature-dependent phase transitions in zeptoliter volumes of a complex biological membrane
Maxim P Nikiforov1, Sophia Hohlbauch, William P King
1The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA.
Abstract:
Phase transitions in purple membrane have been a topic of debate for the past two decades. In this work we present studies of a reversible transition of purple membrane in the 50-60 °C range in zeptoliter volumes under different heating regimes (global heating and local heating). The temperature of the reversible phase transition is 52 ± 5 °C for both local and global heating, supporting the hypothesis that this transition is mainly due to a structural rearrangement of bR molecules and trimers. To achieve high resolution measurements of temperature-dependent phase transitions, a new scanning probe microscopy-based method was developed. We believe that our new technique can be extended to other biological systems and can contribute to the understanding of inhomogeneous phase transitions in complex systems.
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