Patterning and Composition Arrays of Supported Lipid Bilayers by Microcontact Printing

Fluid-supported lipid bilayers self-assemble on glass and SiO2 surfaces. We have found that it is also possible to assemble fluid bilayers on plasma-oxidized polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS) surfaces. Furthermore, it is possible to transfer or print the supported bilayer from raised PDMS surfaces, such as are typically used for microcontact printing, to fresh glass surfaces creating a supported bilayer membrane replica of the patterned PDMS surface on glass. These patterned islands of bilayer are fully fluid and indefinitely stable under water. The pattern is erased upon addition of more vesicles leaving a continuous bilayer surface. By printing membrane islands of various sizes onto a glass surface that is prepatterned with a material that forms permanent barriers to lateral diffusion and then backfilling the open region with vesicles, it is possible to create arbitrary concentration or composition arrays of membrane-associated components. These arrays may be useful for studies of membrane biophysics, for high throughput screening of compounds that target membrane components, and for probing and possibly controlling living cellsynthetic membrane interactions.