Lipid bilayer formation on organic electronic materials

The lipid bilayer is the elemental structure of a cell membrane, forming a stable barrier between the interior and exterior of the cell while hosting membrane proteins that enable selective transport of biologically important compounds and cellular recognition. Monitoring the quality and function of lipid bilayers is thus essential and can be performed using electrically active substrates that allow for transduction of signals. Such a promising electronic transducer material is the conducting polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) doped with poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) which has provided a plethora of novel bio transducing architectures. The challenge is, however, in assembling a bilayer on the conducting polymer surface, which is defect-free and has high mobility. Herein, we investigate the fusion of zwitterionic vesicles not only on a variety of PEDOT:PSS films, but also on an electron transporting, negatively charged organic semiconductor, in order to understand the surface properties that trigger vesicle fusion. The PEDOT:PSS films are prepared from dispersions containing different concentrations of ethylene glycol included as a formulation additive, which gives a handle to modulate the surface physicochemical properties without a compromise on the chemical composition. A strong correlation between the polarity of the surface, the fusion of the vesicles and the mobility of the resulting bilayer aids in extracting the design principles for the development of future conducting polymers that will enable the formation of lipid bilayers.