Pritam Mandal

Coarsening Dynamics of Domains in Lipid Membranes

We investigate isothermal diffusion and growth of micron-scale liquid domains within membranes of free-floating giant unilamellar vesicles with diameters between 80 and 250 μm. Domains appear after a rapid temperature quench, when the membrane is cooled through a miscibility phase transition such that coexisting liquid phases form. In membranes quenched far from a miscibility critical point, circular domains nucleate and then progress within seconds to late stage coarsening in which domains grow via two mechanisms 1), collision and coalescence of liquid domains, and 2), Ostwald ripening. Both mechanisms are expected to yield the same growth exponent, α = 1/3, where domain radius grows as time(α). We measure α = 0.28 ± 0.05, in excellent agreement. In membranes close to a miscibility critical point, the two liquid phases in the membrane are bicontinuous. A quench near the critical composition results in rapid changes in morphology of elongated domains. In this case, we measure α = 0.50 ± 0.16, consistent with theory and simulation.

Cholesterol Depletion from a Ceramide/Cholesterol Mixed Monolayer: A Brewster Angle Microscope Study

Cholesterol is crucial to the mechanical properties of cell membranes that are important to cells’ behavior. Its depletion from the cell membranes could be dramatic. Among cyclodextrins (CDs), methyl beta cyclodextrin (MβCD) is the most efficient to deplete cholesterol (Chol) from biomembranes. Here, we focus on the depletion of cholesterol from a C16 ceramide/cholesterol (C16-Cer/Chol) mixed monolayer using MβCD. While the removal of cholesterol by MβCD depends on the cholesterol concentration in most mixed lipid monolayers, it does not depend very much on the concentration of cholesterol in C16-Cer/Chol monolayers. The surface pressure decay during depletion were described by a stretched exponential that suggested that the cholesterol molecules are unable to diffuse laterally and behave like static traps for the MβCD molecules. Cholesterol depletion causes morphology changes of domains but these disrupted monolayers domains seem to reform even when cholesterol level was low.

Chiral hierarchical self-assembly in Langmuir monolayers of diacetylenic lipids

When compressed in the intermediate temperature range below the chain-melting transition yet in the low-pressure liquid phase, Langmuir monolayers made of chiral lipid molecules form hierarchical structures. Using Brewster angle microscopy to reveal this structure, we found that as the liquid monolayer is compressed, an optically anisotropic condensed phase nucleates in the form of long, thin claws. These claws pack closely to form stripes. This appears to be a new mechanism for forming stripes in Langmuir monolayers. In the lower temperature range, these stripes arrange into spirals within overall circular domains, while near the chain-melting transition, the stripes arrange into target patterns. We attributed this transition to a change in boundary conditions at the core of the largest-scale circular domains.