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Authors: Remigiusz Worch, Thomas Weidemann, Petra Schwille
Lipid bilayers on solid support are widely used cell-surface models with a reduced complexity of biological membranes. It is often postulated however, that reconstituted transmembrane proteins lose their mobility because of direct interactions between the protein and underlying support. To overcome this problem we successfully applied supported membranes on polymer cushions using polyethyleneglycol (PEG)-conjugated lipids. The functionality of reconstituted cytokine receptor, interleukin-4 receptor alpha chain (IL-4R alpha), was addressed by measuring its lateral diffusion by means of fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) techniques including its line-scan variant. The dynamics of the receptor in artificial membranes is compared to its behavior in plasma membrane of living cells, measured in parallel experiments. We propose to use the artificial system for further studies of protein-lipid and protein-ligand interactions. |
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