title: Tethered Lipid Bilayers within Porous Si Nanostructures: A Platform for (Optical) Real-Time Monitoring of Membrane-Associated Processes.
abstract: The importance of cell membranes in biological systems has prompted the development of artificial lipid bilayers, which can mimic the cellular membrane structure. Supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) have emerged as a promising avenue for studying basic membrane processes and for possible biotechnological applications. Conventional methods for SLB formation involve the spreading of lipid vesicles on hydrophilic solid supports. Herein, a facile approach for the construction of tethered SLB within an oxidized porous Si (pSiO2) nanostructure, avoiding liposome preparation, is presented. We employ a two-step lipid self-assembly process, in which a first lipid layer is tethered to the pore walls resulting in a highly stable monolayer. A subsequent solvent exchange step induces the self-assembly of the unbound lipids into a robust SLB. Formation of pSiO2-SLB is confirmed by fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), and the properties of the confined SLB are characterized by environment-sensitive fluorophores. The unique optical properties of the pSiO2 support are employed to monitor in real time the partitioning of a model amphiphilic molecule within the SLB via reflective interferometric Fourier transform spectroscopy (RIFTS) method. These self-reporting SLB platforms provide a highly generic approach for bottom-up construction of complex lipid architectures for performing biological assays at the micro- and nanoscale.
authors.affiliation: †Department of Biotechnology and Food Engineering and ‡The Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel.
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tenenbaum
authors.affiliation: †Department of Biotechnology and Food Engineering and ‡The Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel.
authors.forename: Nadav
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ben-Dov
authors.affiliation: †Department of Biotechnology and Food Engineering and ‡The Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel.
authors.forename: Ester
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Segal
mesh_terms: D008051:Lipid Bilayers / Q000737:chemistry*; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D016062:Porosity
chemical_list: D008051:Lipid Bilayers