Chaotropic Agent-Assisted Supported Lipid Bilayer Formation.

Supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) are useful structures for mimicking cellular membranes, and they can be integrated with a variety of sensors. Although there are a variety of methods for forming SLBs, many of these methods come with limitations in terms of the lipid compositions that can be employed and the substrates upon which the SLBs can be deposited. Here we demonstrate the use of an all-aqueous chaotropic agent exchange process that can be used to form SLBs on two different substrate materials: SiO, which is compatible with traditional SLB formation by vesicle fusion, and AlO, which is not compatible with vesicle fusion.

Imaging Giant Vesicle Membrane Domains with a Luminescent Europium Tetracycline Complex.

Microdomains in lipid bilayer membranes are routinely imaged using organic fluorophores that preferentially partition into one of the lipid phases, resulting in fluorescence contrast. Here, we show that membrane microdomains in giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) can be visualized with europium luminescence using a complex of europium III (Eu) and tetracycline (EuTc). EuTc is unlike typical organic lipid probes in that it is a coordination complex with a unique excitation/emission wavelength combination (396/617 nm), a very large Stokes shift (221 nm), and a very narrow emission bandwidth (8 nm).