Breakdown of the Coupling between the Lipid Membrane Dynamics of Differing Hierarchical Levels

Abstract

Diverse biological functions of biomembranes are made possible by their rich dynamical behaviors across multiple scales. While the potential coupling between the dynamics of differing scales may underlie the machineries regulating the biomembrane-involving processes, the mechanism and even the existence of this coupling remains an open question, despite the latter being taken for granted. Via inelastic neutron scattering, we examined dynamics across multiple scales for the lipid membranes whose dynamic behaviors were perturbed by configurational changes at two membrane regions.