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Hallmarks of Reversible Separation of Living, Unperturbed Cell Membranes into Two Liquid Phases.

ABSTRACT: Controversy has long surrounded the question of whether spontaneous lateral demixing of membranes into coexisting liquid phases can organize proteins and lipids on micron scales within unperturbed, living cells. A clear answer hinges on observation of hallmarks of a reversible phase transition. Here, by directly imaging micron-scale membrane domains of yeast vacuoles both in vivo and cell free, we demonstrate that the domains arise through a phase separation mechanism. The domains are large, have smooth boundaries, and can merge quickly, consistent with fluid phases. Moreover, the domains disappear above a distinct miscibility transition temperature (Tmix) and reappear below Tmix, over multiple heating and cooling cycles. Hence, large-scale membrane organization in living cells under physiologically relevant conditions can be controlled by tuning a single thermodynamic parameter.

SUBMITTER: Rayermann SP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5768487 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Hallmarks of Reversible Separation of Living, Unperturbed Cell Membranes into Two Liquid Phases.

Rayermann Scott P SP Rayermann Glennis E GE Cornell Caitlin E CE Merz Alexey J AJ Keller Sarah L SL

Biophysical journal 20171201 11

Controversy has long surrounded the question of whether spontaneous lateral demixing of membranes into coexisting liquid phases can organize proteins and lipids on micron scales within unperturbed, living cells. A clear answer hinges on observation of hallmarks of a reversible phase transition. Here, by directly imaging micron-scale membrane domains of yeast vacuoles both in vivo and cell free, we demonstrate that the domains arise through a phase separation mechanism. The domains are large, hav ...[more]

PMID: 29211996

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Project description:To prevent greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere, separations like CO2/CH4 and CO2/N2 from natural gas, biogas, and flue gasses are crucial. Polymer membranes gained a key role in gas separations over the past decades, but these polymers are often not organized at a molecular level, which results in a trade-off between permeability and selectivity. In this work, the effect of molecular order and orientation in liquid crystals (LCs) polymer membranes for gas permeation is demonstrated. Using the self-assembly of polymerizable LCs to prepare membranes ensures control over the supramolecular organization and alignment of the building blocks at a molecular level. Robust freestanding LC membranes were fabricated that have various, distinct morphologies (isotropic, nematic cybotactic, and smectic C) and alignment (planar and homeotropic), while using the same chemical composition. Single gas permeation data show that the permeability decreases with increasing molecular order while the ideal gas selectivity of He and CO2 over N2 increases tremendously (36-fold for He/N2 and 21-fold for CO2/N2) when going from randomly ordered to the highly ordered smectic C morphology. The calculated diffusion coefficients showed a 10-fold decrease when going from randomly ordered membranes to ordered smectic C membranes. It is proposed that with increasing molecular order, the free volume elements in the membrane become smaller, which hinders gasses with larger kinetic diameters (Ar, N2) more than gasses with smaller kinetic diameters (He, CO2), inducing selectivity. Comparison of gas sorption and permeation performances of planar and homeotropic aligned smectic C membranes shows the effect of molecular orientation by a 3-fold decrease of the diffusion coefficient of homeotropic aligned smectic C membranes resulting in a diminished gas permeation and increased ideal gas selectivities. These results strongly highlight the importance of molecular order and orientation in LC polymer membranes for gas separation.

Dataset Information

Hallmarks of Reversible Separation of Living, Unperturbed Cell Membranes into Two Liquid Phases.

Publications

Hallmarks of Reversible Separation of Living, Unperturbed Cell Membranes into Two Liquid Phases.

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