Archaea Analogue Thiolipids for Tethered Bilayer Lipid Membranes on Ultrasmooth Gold Surfaces

Abstract

Simple vesicle fusion allowed the formation of a bilayer lipid membrane from the self-assembled monolayer of lipoic acid ester 1 (see formula). Film thicknesses determined by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) spectroscopic measurements agree with the theoretical thicknesses of the stretched conformation. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) of the model system shows that the latter exhibits similar electrical properties to biological membranes.