Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 31: Posters: Membranes and Vesicles

BP 31.10: Poster

Thursday, March 25, 2010, 17:15–20:00, Poster B1

Panta Rhei -- Flow Behaviour in Phospholipid Membranes — •Sebastian Busch¹, Christoph Smuda², Luis Carlos Pardo³, and Tobias Unruh¹ — ¹Physik Department E13 and Forschungsneutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II), Technische Universität München, Lichtenbergstraße 1, 85748 Garching bei München — ²Institut für Pharmazeutische Wissenschaften, ETH Zürich, CH-8093 Zürich — ³Grup de Caracterització de Materials, ETSEIB, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, E-08028 Barcelona

The long-range motion of phospholipid molecules in the membrane has been of major interest for many years not only because of its importance for processes in the cell membrane but also the puzzling fact that short- and long-time techniques observed vastly different mobilities: Neutron scattering experiments observed much faster motions on the picosecond time scale than macroscopic techniques.

We show that our new high-precision quasielastic neutron scattering experiments are compatible with recent molecular dynamics simulations which propose a flow-like motion of the phospholipid molecules on short times. The difference of observed mobilities can be explained by the transition from this ballistic regime to normal diffusive behaviour.

The influence of additives on the phospholipid mobility, measured on the same time scale, will also be briefly addressed.