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Tethered Lipid Bilayers within Porous Si Nanostructures: A Platform for (Optical) Real-Time Monitoring of Membrane-Associated Processes.

The importance of cell membranes in biological systems has prompted the development of artificial lipid bilayers, which can mimic the cellular membrane structure. Supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) have emerged as a promising avenue for studying basic membrane processes and for possible biotechnological applications. Conventional methods for SLB formation involve the spreading of lipid vesicles on hydrophilic solid supports. Herein, a facile approach for the construction of tethered SLB within an oxidized porous Si (pSiO2) nanostructure, avoiding liposome preparation, is presented. We employ a two-step lipid self-assembly process, in which a first lipid layer is tethered to the pore walls resulting in a highly stable monolayer. A subsequent solvent exchange step induces the self-assembly of the unbound lipids into a robust SLB. Formation of pSiO2-SLB is confirmed by fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), and the properties of the confined SLB are characterized by environment-sensitive fluorophores. The unique optical properties of the pSiO2 support are employed to monitor in real time the partitioning of a model amphiphilic molecule within the SLB via reflective interferometric Fourier transform spectroscopy (RIFTS) method. These self-reporting SLB platforms provide a highly generic approach for bottom-up construction of complex lipid architectures for performing biological assays at the micro- and nanoscale.