Nanoscale Substrate Roughness Hinders Domain Formation in Supported Lipid Bilayers

TL;DR

This study investigates how nanoscale substrate roughness impacts domain formation in supported lipid bilayers, revealing that rougher surfaces hinder the growth of micron-scale domains by acting as a drag during phase separation.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of how different substrate surface properties, especially nanoscale roughness, influence lipid bilayer domain formation, which was not previously well understood.

Findings

Micron-scale domains form on mica, but are reduced to nanometer scale on glass and quartz.

Nanoscale surface roughness acts as a drag, hindering domain growth during phase separation.

Surface physico-chemical properties influence domain formation through effects on interstitial water layers.

Abstract

Supported Lipid Bilayers (SLBs) are model membranes formed at solid substrate surfaces. This architecture renders the membrane experimentally accessible to surface sensitive techniques used to study their properties, including Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), optical fluorescence microscopy, Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) and X-Ray/Neutron Reflectometry, and allows integration with technology for potential biotechnological applications such as drug screening devices. The experimental technique often dictates substrate choice or treatment, and it is anecdotally recognised that certain substrates are suitable for the particular experiment, but the exact influence of the substrate has not been comprehensively investigated. Here, we study the behavior of a simple model bilayer, phase separating on a variety of commonly used substrates, including glass, mica, silicon and quartz, with drastically different results. The distinct micron scale domains observed on mica, identical to those seen in free-floating Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs), are reduced to nanometer scale domains on glass and quartz. The mechanism for the arrest of domain formation is investigated, and the most likely candidate is nanoscale surface roughness, acting as a drag on the hydrodynamic motion of small domains during phase separation. Evidence was found that the physico-chemical properties of the surface have a mediating effect, most likely due to changes in the lubricating interstitial water layer between surface and bilayer.