Patterned biomimetic membranes: Effect of concentration and pH

Planar-supported lipid bilayers have attracted enormous attention because of their properties as model cell membranes, which can be employed in a variety of fundamental biological studies and medical devices. Furthermore, the development of patterned biological interfaces is of great practical and scientific interest because of their potential applications in the field of biosensors, drug screening, tissue engineering, and medical implants. In this study, mica-supported membranes were constructed from biomimetic peptide-amphiphiles and their mixtures with lipidated poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG120) molecules or 1,2-dipalmitoylsn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) phospholipids using the Langmuir-Blodgett technique. The two peptide-amphiphiles used in this study were a fibronectin-mimetic with the PHSRN(SG)(3)SGRGDSP headgroup (referred to as PHSRN-GRGDSP) that contains both the primary (GRGDSP) and the synergy (PHSRN) recognition sites for alpha(5)beta(1) integrins and a peptide-amphiphile that mimics a fragment of the N-terminus of the fractalkine receptor (referred to as NTFR). Compression isotherms of the peptide-amphiphiles and their mixtures with PEG120 at the air/water interface were recorded and analyzed to evaluate the extent of miscibility in the two-component LB films. Domain formation in mica-supported bilayers constructed from mixtures of peptide-amphiphiles and lipidated PEG120 or DPPC was observed using atomic force microscopy. In PHSRN-GRGDSP/PEG120 mixtures deposited from an aqueous subphase at pH 7, concentration-dependent phase separation was observed on the AFM images. The NTFR/PEG120 and NTFR/DPPC mixtures deposited at pH 10 exhibited extensive lateral phase separation at all mixture compositions, whereas at deposition pH 7 the concentrations of NTFR/DPPC examined here were well mixed.