Abstract
Liquid-crystalline phases of stacked lipid bilayers represent a pervasive motif in biomolecular assemblies. Here we report that, in addition to the usual smectic order, multicomponent multilayer membranes can exhibit columnar order arising from the coupling of two-dimensional intralayer phase separation and interlayer smectic ordering. This coupling propagates across hundreds of membrane lamellae, producing long-range alignment of phase-separated domains. Quantitative analysis of real-time dynamical experiments reveals that there is an interplay between intralayer domain growth and interlayer coupling, suggesting the existence of cooperative multilayer epitaxy. We postulate that such long-range epitaxy is solvent-assisted, and that it originates from the surface tension associated with differences in the network of hydrogen-bonded water molecules at the hydrated interfaces between the domains and the surrounding phase. Our findings might inspire the development of self-assembly-based strategies for the long-range alignment of functional lipid domains.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1074-1080 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Nature Materials |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2012 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Mechanical Engineering
- Mechanics of Materials
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Materials Science(all)
- Chemistry(all)