Observation Procedure for Biomolecular diffusion in Asymmetric Lipid membrane

Abstract

We proposed a method for observing diffusion of hydrophobic biomolecules in asymmetric lipid bilayer. First, we developed a device for sequentially forming asymmetric lipid bilayers with various combination of asymmetric lipid leaflet by droplet split-and-contact method[1]. This device enables us to exchange a leaflet of lipid bilayer, maintaining membrane asymmetry. Asymmetry of hydrophobic biomolecules in lipid bilayer is broken fast, thus observation of hydrophobic biomolecular diffusion in lipid bilayer was difficult. By using proposed device, however, we can control the time in which the biomolecular diffuse from initial asymmetric state. Therefore, we can evaluate the amount of the diffused biomolecule in various diffusion time. According to this procedure, we obtained the dynamics of hydrophobic biomolecular diffusion in lipid bilayer.