Design, Fabrication, and Characterization of Archaeal Tetraether Free-Standing Planar Membranes in a PDMS- and PCB-Based Fluidic Platform

• DOI: 10.1021/am502613x
• Publication Date: 2014-06-17T15:48:02Z
• Authors: Xiang Ren; Kewei Liu; Qingwei Zhang; Hongseok “Moses” Noh; E. Caglan Kumbur; Wenqiao Wayne Yuan; Jack G. Zhou; Parkson Lee-Gau C...
• Keywords: Fluidics; Characterization

The polar lipid fraction E (PLFE) isolated from the thermoacidophilic archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius contains exclusively bipolar tetraether lipids, which are able to form extraordinarily stable vesicular membranes against a number of chemical, physical, and mechanical stressors. PLFE liposomes have thus been considered appealing biomaterials holding great promise for biotechnology applications such as drug delivery biosensing. Here we demonstrated that can also free-standing "planar" on micropores (∼100 μm) polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) thin films embedded in printed circuit board (PCB)-based fluidics. To build this device, two novel approaches were employed: (i) an S1813 sacrificial layer was used facilitate fabrication PDMS film, (ii) oxygen plasma treatment utilized conveniently bond film PCB fluidic chamber. Using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, found dielectric properties planar suspended distinctly different those obtained diester triblock copolymer membranes. In addition resistance (R) capacitance (C) commonly seen all examined, showed inductance (L) component. Furthermore, displayed relatively large membrane resistance, suggesting that, among would be better matrix studying channel proteins transmembrane events. exhibited sharp decrease phase angle with frequency input AC signal at ∼1 MHz, could develop sensors monitoring integrity Since stability increases increasing packing tightness more tightly packed than made expected considerably stable. All these salient features make particularly attractive model studies events high-throughput screening artificial photosynthesis. This work extended nanopores microfluidics eventually aid membrane-based new lab-on-a-chip applications.