Adsorption and binding dynamics of graphene-supported phospholipid membranes using the QCM-D technique

Abstract

We report on the adsorption dynamics of phospholipid membranes on graphene-coated substrates using the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) technique. We compare the lipid vescle interaction and membranne formation on gold and silicon dioxide QCM crystal surfaces with their graphene oxide (GO) and reduced (r)GO coated counterparts, and report on the different lipid structures obtained. We establish graphene derivative coatings as support surfaces with tuneable hydrophobicity for the formation of controllable lipid structures. One structure of interest formed are lipid monolayer membrannes which were formed on rGO, which are otherwise challenging to produce. We also demonstrate and monitor biotin-avidin binding on such a membranne, which will then serve as a platform for a wide range of biosensing applications. The QCM-D technique could be extended to both fundamental studies and applications of other covalent and non-covalent interactions in 2-dimensional materials. [7], [8]. Graphene derivatives can solubilize and bind drug molecules and thus have the potential to be drug delivery vehicles [9]. Such properties can be exploited to increase the sensitivity of biosensors [10] and may act as a supporting platform for the construction of biological detection arrays [11], [12]. Graphene oxide (GO) has played an important role in the development of electrochemical [10], [13] and mass-sensitive sensors [14], [15] and inclusively it has shown strong antibacterial activity [16] by affecting the integrity of the cell membrane [17], which is formed by a continuous lipid bilayer. In GO, the main surface functional groups are hydroxyls and epoxies [18], with carboxylic acids and other keto groups on the edges [19]. GO retains sp 2 -carbon domains as well as sp 3 -carbon groups, endowing it with both hydrophobic and hydrophilic domains, respectively [20]. A majority of such functional groups can be removed upon treatment with a reducing agent, such as L-ascorbic acid [21] or hydrazine [22], or thermally [23] to form reduced (r)GO, which is overall significantly more hydrophobic, comparable to pristine graphene. Exploring different routes for the construction of supported lipid membranes (SLMs) (Scheme 1a), such as supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) or monolayers is pertinent since they are useful platforms for the study of fundamental cell functions and signaling, cell-cell interactions, drug delivery and biosensing [24]. SLMs help to establish a model for the cell membrane and can serve as the key component of biosensor devices. The most common membrane lipids are phospholipids; amphiphilic molecules composed of hydrocarbon chain tails attached to a phosphate head group.Here we present the study of the adsorption and rupture of small unilamellar vesicles (SUVs) (typically <100 nm) on GO-and rGOsubstrates, monitored using the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) technique [25]. Substrates used here were produced by spin coating GO on QCM-D crystals. This coating technique i...

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“…Due to their two-dimensional structure, SLBs are well suited for surface-sensitive applications, such as biochips (Chadli et al, 2018) and biosensors (Rebaud et al, 2014). Further, they are highly amenable to analysis by quartz crystal microbalance (Meléndrez et al, 2018), AFM (Bronder et al, 2016), X-ray (Kuhl et al, 2009; Xu et al, 2018), and neutron (Lind et al, 2015) scattering. Although conventional SLBs are formed on hard substrates (e.g., glass), an SLB can alternatively be modified to incorporate a polymer layer (El-khouri et al, 2011; Watkins et al, 2011; Pace et al, 2015; Andersson and Köper, 2016) between the bilayer and underlying hard substrate.…”