English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Journal Article

Spiral packing and chiral selectivity in model membranes probed by phase-resolved sum-frequency generation microscopy

MPS-Authors
/persons/resource/persons294665

Fellows,  Alexander P.       
Physical Chemistry, Fritz Haber Institute, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons276357

John,  Ben       
Physical Chemistry, Fritz Haber Institute, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons22250

Wolf,  Martin       
Physical Chemistry, Fritz Haber Institute, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons183260

Thämer,  Martin
Physical Chemistry, Fritz Haber Institute, Max Planck Society;

External Resource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (restricted access)
There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.
Fulltext (public)

s41467-024-47573-1.pdf
(Publisher version), 4MB

Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Fellows, A. P., John, B., Wolf, M., & Thämer, M. (2024). Spiral packing and chiral selectivity in model membranes probed by phase-resolved sum-frequency generation microscopy. Nature Communications, 15: 3161. doi:10.1038/s41467-024-47573-1.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000F-3DB8-E
Abstract
Since the lipid raft model was developed at the end of the last century, it became clear that the specific molecular arrangements of phospholipid assemblies within a membrane have profound implications in a vast range of physiological functions. Studies of such condensed lipid islands in model systems using fluorescence and Brewster angle microscopies have shown a wide range of sizes and morphologies, with suggestions of substantial in-plane molecular anisotropy and mesoscopic structural chirality. Whilst these variations can significantly alter many membrane properties including its fluidity, permeability and molecular recognition, the details of the in-plane molecular orientations underlying these traits remain largely unknown. Here, we use phase-resolved sum-frequency generation microscopy on model membranes of mixed chirality phospholipid monolayers to fully determine the three-dimensional molecular structure of the constituent micron-scale condensed domains. We find that the domains possess curved molecular directionality with spiralling mesoscopic packing, where both the molecular and spiral turning directions depend on the lipid chirality, but form structures clearly deviating from mirror symmetry for different enantiomeric mixtures. This demonstrates strong enantioselectivity in the domain growth process and indicates fundamental thermodynamic differences between homo- and heterochiral membranes, which may be relevant in the evolution of homochirality in all living organisms