Quartz Crystal Microbalance With Dissipation Monitoring: A Versatile Tool to Monitor Phase Transitions in Biomimetic Membranes

Shova Neupane,Yana De Smet,Frank U Renner,Patricia Losada-Pérez

doi:10.3389/fmats.2018.00046

Abstract

Solid-supported lipid membranes are popular models that connect biological and artificial materials used in bio-technological applications. Controlling the lipid organization and the related functions of these model systems entails understanding and characterizing their phase behavior. Quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) is an acoustic-based surface-sensitive technique which is widely used in bio-interfacial science of solid-supported lipid membranes. Its sensitivity to mass and energy dissipation changes at the solid-lipid layer-liquid interface allows the detection of phase transformations of solid-supported membrane geometries. In this perspective, we highlight this valuable feature and its related methodology, review current advances and briefly discuss future perspectives. Furthermore, a specific example on the ability of QCM D to detect lipid organization changes of cholesterol containing solid-supported lipid vesicle layers (SVLs) upon the addition of aspirin is also provided

Highlights

Fundamental knowledge about membrane phases and their related structure and organization is crucial, since they are the physical frontier between the inner and outer parts of the cell
The mechanisms behind the detection of phase transitions rely on changes in film thickness and viscoelastic properties, which translate in changes in frequency and dissipation shifts
This allows the detection of phase transformations in very thin 2D-solid-supported bilayers (SLBs) and 3D-supported lipid vesicle layers (SVLs)

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Fundamental knowledge about membrane phases and their related structure and organization is crucial, since they are the physical frontier between the inner and outer parts of the cell. The influence of substrate topography on membrane organization is a practically unexplored issue limited to very few studies (see, for instance, Hoopes et al, 2011; Losada-Pérez et al, 2018) In this context, quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) has recently emerged and is steadily growing as a versatile technique to detect and characterize the phase behavior of different solid-supported lipid membrane geometries. In the case of thin and stiff SLBs the dominant mechanisms by which QCM-D detects the transition are related to the change in thickness and changes in the viscoelastic properties of the SLBs. In thicker and softer SVLs, additional hydrodynamic effects related to FIGURE 1 | (A) Schematic of changes in SVLs upon the main phase transition (B) temperature dependence of the frequency shift d( f/9)/dT (black solid line) and its first-order derivative (blue solid line) of a DPPC SVL upon heating at 0.2◦C/min. Subsequent heating and cooling runs show that the transition is reversible and takes place within the same temperature range considering the hysteresis between heating and cooling (see Figure 2C)

CONCLUSION

Findings

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS