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Updated: Feb 5, 2026

Tethered Bilayer Lipid Membranes to Monitor Heat Transfer between Gold Nanoparticles and Lipid Membranes
Published on: December 8, 2020
Interfacial charges drive the organization of supported lipid membranes and their interaction with nanoparticles
Xavier Toledo-Fuentes1, Céline Molinaro1, Francesca Cecchet1
1Laboratory of Lasers and Spectroscopies (LLS), Namur Institute of Structured Matter (NISM), NAmur Research Institute for LIfe Sciences (NARILIS), University of Namur, Belgium.
Abstract:
In this work, we investigated the interaction of cationic gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with an anionic solid-supported lipid bilayer (SSLB) prepared via the spontaneous fusion of vesicles of phosphatidylserine (DPPS) and phosphatidylcholine (DPPC) on SiO2. We combined sum frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy at the SSLBs interfaces with electrophoretic light scattering at the vesicles/liquid interfaces, and we provided further insight into the formation of organized DPPS-DPPC films on SiO2 and their interaction with NPs. We found that there is a critical threshold of the relative vesicles/substrate interfacial zeta potentials, beyond which the conformational organization of SSLBs failed. Moreover, we also demonstrated that the presence of anionic DPPS lipids in model mixed DPPS-DPPC membranes accelerated the interaction rate with cationic AuNPs.
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