Morphological and Physical Analysis of Natural Phospholipids-Based Biomembranes

et al. (2014) Morphological and Physical Analysis of Natural Phospholipids-Based Biomembranes. PLoS ONE 9(9): e107435. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0107435 Morphological and Physical Analysis of Natural Phospholipids-Based Biomembranes Adrien Jacquot 0 Gre gory Francius 0 Angelina Razafitianamaharavo 0 Fariba Dehghani 0 Ali Tamayol 0 Michel Linder 0 Elmira Arab-Tehrany 0 Etienne Dague, LAAS-CNRS, France 0 1 Universite de Lorraine, Laboratoire Inge nierie des Biomole cules, TSA 40602, Vandoeuvre-le`s-Nancy, France, 2 Universite de Lorraine, Laboratoire de Chimie Physique et Microbiologie pour l9Environnement, UMR 7564, Villers-le`s-Nancy, France , 3 CNRS , Laboratoire de Chimie Physique et Microbiologie pour l9Environnement, UMR 7564, Villers-le`s-Nancy, France, 4 Universite de Lorraine, Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Environnements Continentaux, UMR 7360, Vandoeuvre-le`s-Nancy, France , 5 CNRS , Interdisciplinaire des Environnements Continentaux, UMR 7360, Vandoeuvre-le`s-Nancy, France, 6 School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the University of Sydney , Sydney, New South Wales , Australia , 7 Division of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School , Cambridge, Massachusetts , United States of America Background: Liposomes are currently an important part of biological, pharmaceutical, medical and nutritional research, as they are considered to be among the most effective carriers for the introduction of various types of bioactive agents into target cells. Scope of Review: In this work, we study the lipid organization and mechanical properties of biomembranes made of marine and plant phospholipids. Membranes based on phospholipids extracted from rapeseed and salmon are studied in the form of liposome and as supported lipid bilayer. Dioleylphosphatidylcholine (DOPC) and dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) are used as references to determine the lipid organization of marine and plant phospholipid based membranes. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging and force spectroscopy measurements are performed to investigate the membranes' topography at the micrometer scale and to determine their mechanical properties. Major Conclusions: The mechanical properties of the membranes are correlated to the fatty acid composition, the morphology, the electrophoretic mobility and the membrane fluidity. Thus, soft and homogeneous mechanical properties are evidenced for salmon phospholipids membrane containing various polyunsaturated fatty acids. Besides, phase segregation in rapeseed membrane and more important mechanical properties were emphasized for this type of membranes by contrast to the marine phospholipids based membranes. General Significance: This paper provides new information on the nanomechanical and morphological properties of membrane in form of liposome by AFM. The originality of this work is to characterize the physico-chemical properties of the nanoliposome from the natural sources containing various fatty acids and polar head. - Data Availability: The authors confirm that all data underlying the findings are fully available without restriction. All relevant data are within the paper and its supporting information files. Funding: This work was supported by French Ministry of Research and Education (MESR). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exist. Liposomes are artificial lipid vesicles with a lipid membrane that can encapsulate, protect, and transfect active molecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, and drugs. This particular property allows the liposomes to be used as vectors or biological carriers in biomedicine, pharmaceutics (vectorization and drug delivery), genetics (transfection or gene transfer) and tissue engineering [1]. Liposome could be formed of much different class of lipids, but the main constituents of lipid membranes are phospholipids. Phospholipids are amphiphilic molecules containing water soluble, hydrophilic head section and a lipid-soluble, hydrophobic tail section. Their membrane is composed of one or more bilayers which create a lipophilic space. The innocuity of liposomes constituents and their ability for the encapsulation of both hydrophilic and lipophilic species make them ideal candidates for drug delivery [2,3,4]. Overcoming the poor solubility in water of lipophilic drugs is of particular interest to increase the drug availability and to reduce its negative side effects [5]. Liposome size, surface properties, and membrane fluidity can be modulated by changes in lipid composition or the addition of polymers, polysaccharides or specific specie to tune the drug delivery rate [6]. A key challenge is to predict encapsulation efficiency and release kinetics of drugs from liposomes based on their formulation. In the recent years, supported lipid (...truncated)