title: Long-range interlayer alignment of intralayer domains in stacked lipid bilayers.
abstract: Liquid-crystalline phases of stacked lipid bilayers represent a pervasive motif in biomolecular assemblies. Here we report that, in addition to the usual smectic order, multicomponent multilayer membranes can exhibit columnar order arising from the coupling of two-dimensional intralayer phase separation and interlayer smectic ordering. This coupling propagates across hundreds of membrane lamellae, producing long-range alignment of phase-separated domains. Quantitative analysis of real-time dynamical experiments reveals that there is an interplay between intralayer domain growth and interlayer coupling, suggesting the existence of cooperative multilayer epitaxy. We postulate that such long-range epitaxy is solvent-assisted, and that it originates from the surface tension associated with differences in the network of hydrogen-bonded water molecules at the hydrated interfaces between the domains and the surrounding phase. Our findings might inspire the development of self-assembly-based strategies for the long-range alignment of functional lipid domains.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Science, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA.
authors.forename: Lobat
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tayebi
authors.forename: Yicong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Daryoosh
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vashaee
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Sunil K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Sinha
authors.forename: Atul N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Parikh
mesh_terms: D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions; D008051:Lipid Bilayers / Q000737:chemistry*; D021962:Membrane Microdomains / Q000737:chemistry*; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry; D014961:X-Ray Diffraction
chemical_list: D008051:Lipid Bilayers; D014867:Water