Dr William Trewby william.trewby@durham.ac.uk
Post Doctoral Research Associate
Local mapping of the nanoscale viscoelastic properties of fluid membranes by AFM nanorheology
Trewby, William; Tavakol, Mahdi; Voïtchovsky, Kislon
Authors
Dr Mehdi Tavakol mehdi.tavakol@durham.ac.uk
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Professor Kislon Voitchovsky kislon.voitchovsky@durham.ac.uk
Professor
Abstract
Biological membranes are intrinsically dynamic entities that continually adapt their biophysical properties and molecular organisation to support cellular function. Current microscopy techniques can derive high-resolution structural information of labelled molecules but quantifying the associated viscoelastic behaviour with nanometre precision remains challenging. Here, we develop an approach based on atomic force microscopy in conjunction with fast nano-actuators to map the viscoelastic response of unlabelled supported membranes with nanometre spatial resolution. On fluid membranes, we show that the method can quantify local variations in the molecular mobility of the lipids and derive a diffusion coefficient. We confirm our experimental approach with molecular dynamics simulations, also highlighting the role played by the water at the interface with the membrane on the measurement. Probing ternary model bilayers reveals spatial correlations in the local diffusion over distances of ≈20 nm within liquid disordered domains. This lateral correlation is enhanced in native bovine lens membranes, where the inclusion of protein-rich domains induces four-fold variations in the diffusion coefficient across < 100 nm of the fluid regions, consistent with biological function. Our findings suggest that diffusion is highly localised in fluid biomembranes.
Citation
Trewby, W., Tavakol, M., & Voïtchovsky, K. (2025). Local mapping of the nanoscale viscoelastic properties of fluid membranes by AFM nanorheology. Nature Communications, 16, Article 3842. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-59260-w
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Apr 15, 2025 |
Online Publication Date | Apr 24, 2025 |
Publication Date | Apr 24, 2025 |
Deposit Date | May 20, 2025 |
Publicly Available Date | May 20, 2025 |
Journal | Nature Communications |
Electronic ISSN | 2041-1723 |
Publisher | Nature Research |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 16 |
Article Number | 3842 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-59260-w |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3804040 |
Files
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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