Lipid bilayer characterization is the use of various optical, chemical and physical probing methods to study the properties of lipid bilayers. Many of these techniques are elaborate and require expensive equipment because the fundamental nature of the lipid bilayer makes it a very difficult structure to study. An individual bilayer, since it is only a few nanometers thick, is invisible in traditional light microscopy. The bilayer is also a relatively fragile structure since it is held together entirely by non-covalent bonds and is irreversibly destroyed if removed from water. In spite of these limitations dozens of techniques have been developed over the last seventy years to allow investigations of the structure and function of bilayers. The first general approach was to utilize non-destructive in situ measurements such as x-ray diffraction and electrical resistance which measured bilayer properties but did not actually image the bilayer. Later, protocols were developed to modify the bilayer and allow its direct visualization at first in the electron microscope and, more recently, with fluorescence microscopy. Over the past two decades, a new generation of characterization tools including AFM has allowed the direct probing and imaging of membranes in situ with little to no chemical or physical modification. More recently, dual polarisation interferometry has been used to measure the optical birefringence of lipid bilayers to characterise order and disruption associated with interactions or environmental effects.
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The lipidbilayer (or phospholipid bilayer) is a thin polar membrane made of two layers of lipid molecules. These membranes are flat sheets that form a...
A model lipidbilayer is any bilayer assembled in vitro, as opposed to the bilayer of natural cell membranes or covering various sub-cellular structures...
packed than the surrounding bilayer, but float freely within the membrane bilayer. Although more common in the cell membrane, lipid rafts have also been reported...
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integral membrane proteins, or penetrate the peripheral regions of the lipidbilayer. The regulatory protein subunits of many ion channels and transmembrane...
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membrane comprises a typical lipidbilayer, similar to what can be found in virtually all human cells. Simply put, this lipidbilayer is composed of cholesterol...
membranes. They arrange themselves into lipidbilayers, by forming a sheet composed of two layers of lipids. Each layer forms by positioning their lypophilic...
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transition temperature of PE from lipidbilayers to nonlamellar phases using 31P-NMR. The curvature induced by these lipids was shown to be dependent not...
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the translocation of phospholipids between the two monolayers of a lipidbilayer of a cell membrane. In humans, phospholipid scramblases (PLSCRs) constitute...
the antimicrobial peptides allows them to partition into the membrane lipidbilayer. The ability to associate with membranes is a definitive feature of...
is called a lipidbilayer. The phospholipids of archaea are unusual in four ways: They have membranes composed of glycerol-ether lipids, whereas bacteria...
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the lipidbilayer of cells, also known as cellular membranes. Synthetic membranes can be obtained by preparing aqueous solutions of certain lipids. The...
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study of membrane proteins. Nanodiscs are discoidal proteins in which a lipidbilayer is surrounded by molecules that are amphipathic molecules including...
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stable and chemically resistant outer leaflet of the plasma membrane lipidbilayer. Certain complex glycosphingolipids were found to be involved in specific...
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