Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Langmuir. 2011 Feb 15;27(4):1308-13. doi: 10.1021/la103927a. Epub 2010 Nov 19.
Investigating the structural and mechanical properties of lipid bilayer membrane systems is vital in elucidating their biological function. One route to directly correlate the morphology of phase-segregated membranes with their indentation and rupture mechanics is the collection of atomic force microscopy (AFM) force maps. These force maps, while containing rich mechanical information, require lengthy processing time due to the large number of force curves needed to attain a high spatial resolution. A force curve analysis toolset was created to perform data extraction, calculation and reporting specifically in studying lipid membrane morphology and mechanical stability. The procedure was automated to allow for high-throughput processing of force maps with greatly reduced processing time. The resulting program was successfully used in systematically analyzing a number of supported lipid membrane systems in the investigation of their structure and nanomechanics.
研究脂质双层膜系统的结构和力学性质对于阐明其生物学功能至关重要。一种直接将相分离膜的形态与其压痕和破裂力学相关联的方法是收集原子力显微镜（AFM）力图谱。这些力图谱虽然包含丰富的力学信息，但由于需要大量的力曲线来达到高空间分辨率，因此处理时间很长。创建了一个力曲线分析工具集，用于专门研究脂质膜形态和机械稳定性的数据提取、计算和报告。该过程实现了自动化，以便对力图谱进行高通量处理，大大缩短了处理时间。该程序成功地用于系统地分析了许多支撑脂质膜系统，以研究它们的结构和纳米力学。
