LIPID DIFFRACTION ON SUBSTRATE SUPPORTED LIPID MEMBRANE SYSTEMS

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. In this project we explore the feasibility of using the newly developed sample chamber with humidity and temperature control in combination with the Blu-Ice data collection software at the BL4-2 station, to efficiently perform lipid diffraction experiments in gracing incidence geometry on substrate supported lipid bilayers. The high degree of one-dimensional order in this kind of samples readily lends itself to x-ray diffraction and has been exploited extensively in the past to reveal detailed structural information on fluid lipid membranes and some lipid-protein systems. The membrane hydration in these measurements constitutes an important experimental parameter, which is used to solve the phasing problem of the diffraction data. Using the instrument configuration with the maximum accessible q-range we measured the x-ray diffraction intensity of several lipid samples with well known electron density profiles. In the course of the experiment we successfully established a protocol to perform this type of measurement, which will be used in the future for lipid-protein interaction studies, and made available to users. The collected data sets will also be used to validate our method of data reduction and analysis.