Visualization and measurement of the local absorption coefficients of single bilayer phospholipid membranes using scanning near-field optical microscopy

Arif M Siddiquee; Imad Younus Hasan; Shibiao Wei; Daniel Langley; Eugeniu Balaur; Chen Liu; Jiao Lin; Brian Abbey; Adam Mechler; Shanshan Kou

doi:10.1364/BOE.10.006569

Visualization and measurement of the local absorption coefficients of single bilayer phospholipid membranes using scanning near-field optical microscopy

Biomed Opt Express. 2019 Nov 27;10(12):6569-6579. doi: 10.1364/BOE.10.006569. eCollection 2019 Dec 1.

Authors

Arif M Siddiquee^{1

2}, Imad Younus Hasan¹, Shibiao Wei^{1

3}, Daniel Langley^{1

2}, Eugeniu Balaur^{1

2}, Chen Liu¹, Jiao Lin⁴, Brian Abbey^{1

2}, Adam Mechler^{1

5}, Shanshan Kou^{1

2

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and Physics, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science (LIMS), La Trobe University, Victoria 3086, Australia.
² Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Advanced Molecular Imaging, Australia.
³ Centre for Translational Atomaterials, Faculty of Engineering, Science and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, John Street, Hawthorn VIC 3122, Australia.
⁴ School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia.
⁵ a.mechler@latrobe.edu.au.
⁶ s.kou@latrobe.edu.au.

Abstract

Here we report the results of shear-mode thicknesses and absorption coefficient measurements made on neat membranes using scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM). Biomimic neat membranes composed of two different types of phoshpholipid molecules: 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC) and 1,2- dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) were found to exhibit different absorption coefficients under the SNOM. The localization of the lipids could be identified and correlated to the morphology of the membrane domains indicating that SNOM can be an effective and accurate approach for the label-free characterization of the structure-function relationships in cell membranes.