Lipid exchange between membranes

Intermembrane lipid exchange is critical to membrane functions and pharmaceutical applications. The
exchange process is not fully understood and it is explored by quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation
monitor method in this research. It is found that intermembrane lipid exchange is accelerated with the
decrease of vesicle size and the increase of charge and liquid crystalline lipid composition ratio. Vesicle
adsorption rate, membrane lateral pressure gradient, and lipid lateral diffusion coefficient are inferred
to be critical in deciding the lipid exchange kinetics between membranes. Besides that, the membrane
contact situation during lipid exchange is also studied. The maximum total membrane contact area is
found to increase with the decrease of vesicle size, charged and liquid crystalline lipid composition ratio.
A competition mechanism between the vesicle adsorption rate and the intermembrane lipid exchange
rate was proposed to control the maximum total membrane contact area. Q-Sense全自动八通道石英晶体微天平