Supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) on quartz crystals are employed as versatile model systems for studying cell membrane behavior with the use of the highly sensitive technique of quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D). Since the lipids constituting cell membranes vary from predominantly zwitterionic lipids in mammalian cells to predominantly anionic lipids in the inner membrane of Gram-positive bacteria, the ability to create SLBs of different lipid compositions is essential for representing different cell membranes. While methods to generate stable zwitterionic SLBs and zwitterionic-dominant mixed zwitterionic-anionic SLBs on quartz crystals have been well established, there are no reports of being able to form predominantly or fully anionic SLBs. We describe here a method for forming entirely anionic SLBs by treating the quartz crystal with cationic (3-aminopropyl) trimethoxysilane (APTMS). The formation of the anionic SLB was tracked using QCM-D by monitoring the adsorption of anionic lipid vesicles to a quartz surface and subsequent bilayer formation. Anionic egg L-α-phosphatidylglycerol (PG) vesicles adsorbed on the surface-treated quartz crystal, but did not undergo the vesicle-to-bilayer transition to create an SLB. However, when PG was mixed with 10-40 mole% 1-palmitoyl-2-hydroxy-sn-glycero-3-phospho-(1'-rac-glycerol) (LPG), the mixed vesicles led to the formation of stable SLBs. The dynamics of SLB formation monitored by QCM-D showed that while SLB formation by zwitterionic lipids followed a two-step process of vesicle adsorption followed by the breakdown of the adsorbed vesicles (which in turn is a result of multiple events) to create the SLB, the PG/LPG mixed vesicles ruptured immediately on contacting the quartz surface resulting in a one-step process of SLB formation. The QCM-D data also enabled the quantitative characterization of the SLB by allowing estimation of the lipid surface density as well as the thickness of the hydrophobic region of the SLB. These fully anionic SLBs are valuable model systems to conduct QCM-D studies of the interactions of extraneous substances such as antimicrobial peptides and nanoparticles with Gram-positive bacterial membranes.
Keywords: anionic lipid bilayer; anionic vesicle; bacterial membrane model; mixed lipid membrane; supported lipid bilayer; vesicle to bilayer transition.