Issue 18, 2011
From the journal:

Soft Matter

Short range ballistic motion in fluid lipid bilayers studied by quasi-elastic neutron scattering†

C. L. Armstrong,‡*a   M. Trapp,‡bc   J. Peters,def   T. Seydelf  and  M. C. Rheinstädterag  

* Corresponding authors

a Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
E-mail: armstc5@mcmaster.ca, rheinstadter@mcmaster.ca
Fax: +1-(905)546-1252
Tel: +1-(905)525-9140 ext.23134

b Angewandte Physikalische Chemie, Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 253, Heidelberg, Germany

c Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, Lise-Meitner Campus, Hahn-Meitner-Platz 1, Berlin, Germany

d Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble Cédex 9, France

e Institut de Biologie Structurale, J.-P. Ebel, UMR 5075, CNRS-CEA-UJF, 41 rue Jules Horowitz, Grenoble Cédex 1, Grenoble, France

f Institut Laue-Langevin, 6 rue Jules Horowitz, B.P. 156, Grenoble Cedex 9, France

g Canadian Neutron Beam Centre, NRC, Chalk River, ON, Canada

Abstract

Diffusion is the primary mechanism for movement of lipids and proteins in the lateral direction of a biological membrane. In this paper we have used quasi-elastic neutron scattering to examine the diffusion process of lipid molecules in fluid DMPC membranes. We found that the motion over length scales greater than the lipid diameter could be characterized as a continuous diffusion process, with a diffusion coefficient of D = 64 × 10−12 m2/s. The continuous diffusion model has been successfully used in the past to describe the motion of lipid over long length scales. However, the focus of this measurement was to determine how the character of the molecular motion changes on length scales shorter than the nearest neighbour distance. At very short length scales (<2.37 Å), we see first experimental evidence for a short-range flow-like ballistic motion.

Graphical abstract: Short range ballistic motion in fluid lipid bilayers studied by quasi-elastic neutron scattering

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C1SM05691C
Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 Apr 2011
Accepted
07 Jul 2011
First published
05 Aug 2011

Soft Matter, 2011,7, 8358-8362

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Short range ballistic motion in fluid lipid bilayers studied by quasi-elastic neutron scattering

C. L. Armstrong, M. Trapp, J. Peters, T. Seydel and M. C. Rheinstädter, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 8358 DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05691C

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