Imaging lipid phase separation in droplet interface bilayers

Thesis

The spatiotemporal organization of membrane proteins is implicated in cellular trafficking, signalling and reception. It was proposed that biological membranes partition into lipid rafts that can promote and control the organization of membrane proteins to localize the mentioned processes. Lipid rafts are thought to be transient (microseconds) and small (nanometers), rendering their detection a challenging task. To circumvent this problem, multi-component artificial membrane systems are deployed to study the segregation of lipids at longer time and length scales. In this thesis, multi-component Droplet Interface Bilayers (DIBs) were imaged using fluorescence and interferometric scattering microscopy. DIBs were used to examine and manipulate microscopic lipid domains and to observe, for the first time, transient nanoscopic lipid domains. The techniques and results described here will have important implications on future research in this field.

Authors: Danial, J

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-y0j9op06m
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biophotonics; Biophysical Chemistry; Membrane Chemistry; Biophysics