Interaction of poly(ethylene glycol)-conjugated phospholipids with supported lipid membranes and their influence on protein adsorption
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Updated: Mar 11, 2026

Assembly of Cell Mimicking Supported and Suspended Lipid Bilayer Models for the Study of Molecular Interactions
Published on: August 3, 2021
Toshihiro Yamamoto1, Yuji Teramura2, Toru Itagaki3
1Department of Reparative Materials, Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, Kyoto University , Kyoto , Japan.
Abstract:
We studied real-time interaction between poly(ethylene glycol)-conjugated phospholipids (PEG-lipids) and a supported lipid membrane by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) spectroscopy to understand dynamic behaviors of PEG-lipids on living cell membranes. Supported lipid membranes formed on a hydrophobic surface were employed as a model of living cell membrane. We prepared three kinds of PEG-lipids that carried alkyl chains of different lengths for SPR measurements and also performed fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) to study the influence of acyl chain length on dynamics on the supported membrane. PEG-lipids were uniformly anchored to lipid membranes with high fluidity without clustering. Incorporation and dissociation rates of PEG-lipids into supported membranes strongly depended on the length of acyl chains; longer acyl chains reduced the incorporation rate and the dissociation rate of PEG-lipid. Furthermore, protein adsorption experiment with bovine serum albumin indicated that PEG modification prevented the adsorption of bovine serum albumin on such supported membrane.
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