Temperature-Controlled Assembly and Characterization of a Droplet Interface Bilayer

Summary

This protocol details the use of a feedback temperature-controlled heating system to promote lipid monolayer assembly and droplet interface bilayer formation for lipids with elevated melting temperatures, and capacitance measurements to characterize temperature-driven changes in the membrane.

Abstract

The droplet interface bilayer (DIB) method for assembling lipid bilayers (i.e., DIBs) between lipid-coated aqueous droplets in oil offers key benefits versus other methods: DIBs are stable and often long-lasting, bilayer area can be reversibly tuned, leaflet asymmetry is readily controlled via droplet compositions, and tissue-like networks of bilayers can be obtained by adjoining many droplets. Forming DIBs requires spontaneous assembly of lipids into high density lipid monolayers at the surfaces of the droplets. While this occurs readily at room temperature for common synthetic lipids, a sufficient monolayer or stable bilayer fails to form at similar conditions for lipids with melting points above room temperature, including some cellular lipid extracts. This behavior has likely limited the compositions—and perhaps the biological relevance—of DIBs in model membrane studies. To address this problem, an experimental protocol is presented to carefully heat the oil reservoir hosting DIB droplets and characterize the effects of temperature on the lipid membrane. Specifically, this protocol shows how to use a thermally conductive aluminum fixture and resistive heating elements controlled by a feedback loop to prescribe elevated temperatures, which improves monolayer assembly and bilayer formation for a wider set of lipid types. Structural characteristics of the membrane, as well as the thermotropic phase transitions of the lipids comprising the bilayer, are quantified by measuring the changes in electrical capacitance of the DIB. Together, this procedure can aid in evaluating biophysical phenomena in model membranes over various temperatures, including determining an effective melting temperature (T_M) for multi-component lipid mixtures. This capability will thus allow for closer replication of natural phase transitions in model membranes and encourage the formation and use of model membranes from a wider swath of membrane constituents, including those that better capture the heterogeneity of their cellular counterparts.

Introduction

Cellular membranes are selectively permeable barriers comprised of thousands of lipid types¹, proteins, carbohydrates, and sterols that encapsulate and subdivide all living cells. Understanding how their compositions affect their functions and revealing how natural and synthetic molecules interact with, adhere to, disrupt, and translocate cellular membranes are, therefore, important areas of research with wide-reaching implications in biology, medicine, chemistry, physics, and materials engineering.

These aims for discovery directly benefit from proven techniques for assembling, manipulating, and studying model ....

Protocol

1. Heated fixture preparation

1. Gather 2 pieces of 1 mm thick insulative rubber trimmed to 25 mm x 40 mm in width and length, respectively, 2 pieces of a 6 mm-thick rubber that are also 25 mm x 40 mm, a prepared aluminum base fixture assembly, and an acrylic oil reservoir that fits in the viewing window of the aluminum base fixture (see Figures S1, S2, and S3 for details on fabrication and an exploded view of assembly). Prepare the aluminum fixture first by attaching to the bottom of the fixtur.......

Discussion

The protocol described herein provides instructions for assembling and operating an experimental system to control the temperature of the oil and droplets used to form DIBs. It is especially beneficial for enabling DIB formation using lipids that have melting temperatures above RT. Moreover, by precisely varying the temperature of the oil reservoir, the bilayer temperature can be manipulated to study the effects of elevated temperatures on various membrane properties and characteristics, including capacitance, area, thic.......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
25 mm x 40 mm x 1 mm insulative rubber (x2)	Any		Insulates the bottom of the aluminum fixture from the stage of the microscope
25 mm x 40 mm x 6 mm insulative rubber (x2)	Any		Protects heating elements from being damaged by the microscope stage clips and insulates the top of the heating elements.
3-(N-morpholino) propanesulfonic acid	Sigma Aldrich	M3183	Buffering agent for lipid solution
Acrylic substrate	Fabricated in house	HTD_STG_2	~1000 uL acrylic well with a poka-yoke exterior profile to fix orientation
Aluminum fixture	Fabricated in house	HTD_STG_1	Base fixture with an oil well that holds the acylic fixture and includes two flat pads adjacent to the oil well for the heating elements
Brain Total Lipid Extract	Avanti	131101C-100mg	25 mg/mL porcine lipid extract
Compact DAQ Chassis (cDAQ)	National Instruments	cDAQ-9174	Chassis to house multiple types of sensor measurement or output modules
Data Acquisition System (DAQ)	Molecular Devices	Digidata 1440A	High resolution analog to digital converter
Fixed gain amplifier/power supply	Hewlitt Packard	HP 6826A	Amplifies DC voltage output from the voltage output module
Glass Cover Slip	Corning	CLS284525	Seals bottom of aluminum base and allows for optical characterization of the bilayer
Heating element (x2)	Omega	KHLV-101/5	25 mm x 25 mm polymide film kapton heating element with a 5 watt power limit.
M3 Stainless Steel Screw	McMaster Carr	90116A150	Secures thermocouple to aluminum fixture
Patch clamp amplifier	Molecular Devices	AxoPatch 200B	Measures current and outputs voltage to the headstage
Personal computer	Any		Computer with mulitiple high speed usb ports and a minimum of 6 Gb of ram
Potassium Chloride	Sigma Aldrich	P3911	Electrolyte solution of dissociated ions
Temperature input module	National Instruments	NI 9211	Enables open and cold junction thermocouple measurements for the cDAQ chassis
Thermocouple	Omega	JMTSS-020U-6	U-type thermocouple with a diameter of 0.02 inches and 6 inches in length
UV Curable Adhesive	Loctite	19739	Secures glass coverslip to aluminum base fixture
Voltage output module	National Instruments	NI 9263	Analog voltage output module for use with the cDAQ chassis
Waveform generator	Agilent	33210A	Used to output a 10 mV 10 Hz sinusoidal waveform