Rotella Chiara, Kumari Pallavi, Rodriguez Brian J, Jarvis Suzanne P, Benedetto Antonio
School of Physics, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland.
Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland.
Biophys Rev. 2018 Jun;10(3):751-756. doi: 10.1007/s12551-018-0424-5. Epub 2018 May 12.
Room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) are a vast class of organic non-aqueous electrolytes whose interaction with biomolecules is receiving great attention for potential applications in bio-nano-technology. Recently, it has been shown that RTILs dispersed at low concentrations at the water-biomembrane interface diffuse into the lipid region of the biomembrane, without disrupting the integrity of the bilayer structure. In this letter, we present the first exploratory study on the effect of absorbed RTILs on the mechanoelasticity of a model biomembrane. Using atomic force microscopy, we found that both the rupture force and the elastic modulus increase upon the insertion of RTILs into the biomembrane. This preliminary result points to the potential use of RTILs to control the mechanoelasticity of cell membranes, opening new avenues for applications in bio-medicine and, more generally, bio-nano-technology. The variety of RTILs offers a vast playground for future studies and potential applications.
室温离子液体（RTILs）是一大类有机非水电解质，其与生物分子的相互作用因在生物纳米技术中的潜在应用而备受关注。最近有研究表明，低浓度分散在水-生物膜界面的RTILs会扩散到生物膜的脂质区域，而不会破坏双层结构的完整性。在这封信中，我们首次对吸附的RTILs对模型生物膜机械弹性的影响进行了探索性研究。通过原子力显微镜，我们发现将RTILs插入生物膜后，破裂力和弹性模量都会增加。这一初步结果表明RTILs在控制细胞膜机械弹性方面具有潜在用途，为生物医学以及更广泛的生物纳米技术应用开辟了新途径。RTILs的多样性为未来的研究和潜在应用提供了广阔的空间。
