Self-Assembly of Graphene Oxide Nanoflakes in a Lipid Monolayer at the Air-Water Interface

The graphene family, especially graphene oxide (GO), has captured increasing prospects in the biomedical field due to its excellent physicochemical properties. Understanding the health and environmental impact of GO is of great importance for guiding future applications. Although their interactions with living organisms are omnipresent, the exact molecular mechanism is yet to be established. The cellular membrane is the first barrier for a foreign molecule to interact before entering into the cell. In the present study, a model system consisting of a lipid monolayer at the air-water interface represents one of the leaflets of this membrane. Surface pressure-area isotherms and advanced synchrotron X-ray scattering techniques have been employed to comprehend the interaction by varying the electrostatics of the membrane. The results depict a strong GO interaction with positively charged phospholipids, weak interaction with zwitterionic lipids, and interestingly negligible interaction with negatively charged lipids. GO flakes induce significant changes in the out-of-plane organization of a positively charged lipid monolayer with a minor influence on in-plane assembly of lipid chains. This interaction is packing-specific, and the influence of GO is much stronger at lower surface pressure. Even though for zwitterionic phospholipids, the GO flakes may partly insert into the lipid chains, the X-ray scattering results indicate that the flakes preferentially lie horizontally underneath the positively charged lipid monolayer. This in-depth structural description may pave new perspectives for the scientific community for the development of GO-based biosensors and biomedical materials.