Journal
NANO LETTERS
Volume 6, Issue 5, Pages 1053-1058Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/nl060625g
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- NCI NIH HHS [R01 CA108467-01] Funding Source: Medline
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The ordering of synthetic liquid crystals near surfaces is known to be dependent on the nanoscopic structure and chemical functionality of surfaces. In this letter, we report that the orientational ordering of synthetic liquid crystals on surfaces decorated with viruses is also dependent on the structures of the viruses. Each of the four virions investigated had diameters of approximately 100 nm, but three of the viruses (influenza virus, La Crosse virus, and vesicular stomatitis virus) were enveloped in a lipid bilayer, whereas one virus (adenovirus) was not. We observed that lipid bilayer-enveloped viruses induce homeotropic (perpendicular) ordering of a nematic liquid crystal upon contact with the liquid crystal. In contrast, nonenveloped virus (adenovirus)-treated surfaces caused a near-planar orientation of the liquid crystal. We conclude that the homeotropic ordering of liquid crystals is a signature of the presence of enveloped viruses present on surfaces. These results suggest new approaches to the design of nanostructured materials that incorporate viruses as well as suggest methods that can be used to amplify the presence of nanoscopic virions into micrometer-sized domains of liquid crystal that can be optically probed.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available