Ripples at edges of blooming lilies and torn plastic sheets.

Ripples arise at edges of petals of blooming Lilium casablanca flowers and at edges of torn plastic sheets. In both systems, ripples are a consequence of excess length along the edge of a sheet. Through the use of time-lapse videos of blooming lilies and published images of torn plastic sheets, we find that ripples in both systems are well described by the scaling relationship a∝w(L-w), where a is amplitude, w is wavelength, and L is arc length. A phenomenological relationship previously reported for self-similar ripple patterns, namely ⟨a⟩∝⟨w⟩, can be recovered by assuming that buckling stress is constant. Excess length along petal edges can also influence their overall Gaussian curvature, such that petals invert from a cup shape to a saddle shape upon blooming. Previous simulations of these shape changes have assumed that petal thickness decreases at least quadratically. Here, we evaluate tomograms of several varieties of lily buds and find that this assumption is valid along the short axis of the buds, but not the long axis. A challenge of employing traditional tomography methods to measure petal thickness is that the sample is destroyed; a single bud cannot be followed through the entire blooming process. To address this challenge, we provide proof of principle that the nondestructive, label-free method of x-ray tomography produces high-contrast three-dimensional scans on time scales short enough to follow lily blooming.

Depletion with Cyclodextrin Reveals Two Populations of Cholesterol in Model Lipid Membranes.

Recent results provide evidence that cholesterol is highly accessible for removal from both cell and model membranes above a threshold concentration that varies with membrane composition. Here we measured the rate at which methyl-ß-cyclodextrin depletes cholesterol from a supported lipid bilayer as a function of cholesterol mole fraction. We formed supported bilayers from two-component mixtures of cholesterol and a PC (phosphatidylcholine) lipid, and we directly visualized the rate of decrease in area of the bilayers with fluorescence microscopy. Our technique yields the accessibility of cholesterol over a wide range of concentrations (30-66 mol %) for many individual bilayers, enabling fast acquisition of replicate data. We found that the bilayers contain two populations of cholesterol, one with low surface accessibility and the other with high accessibility. A larger fraction of the total membrane cholesterol appears in the more accessible population when the acyl chains of the PC-lipid tails are more unsaturated. Our findings are most consistent with the predictions of the condensed-complex and cholesterol bilayer domain models of cholesterol-phospholipid interactions in lipid membranes.

Increasing membrane tension decreases miscibility temperatures; an experimental demonstration via micropipette aspiration.

It has been hypothesized that cytoskeletal tension prevents large-scale phase separation within cell plasma membranes. Here, we microaspirate giant unilamellar vesicles to determine the effect of mechanical stress on the liquid/liquid miscibility temperature of a membrane composed of a ternary lipid mixture. An increase in tension of 0.1 mN/m induces a decrease in miscibility temperature on the order of a few tenths of a degree K, which validates recent theoretical predictions.

Destabilizing giant vesicles with electric fields: an overview of current applications.

This review presents an overview of the effects of electric fields on giant unilamellar vesicles. The application of electrical fields leads to three basic phenomena: shape changes, membrane breakdown, and uptake of molecules. We describe how some of these observations can be used to measure a variety of physical properties of lipid membranes or to advance our understanding of the phenomena of electropermeabilization. We also present results on how electropermeabilization and other liposome responses to applied fields are affected by lipid composition and by the presence of molecules of therapeutic interest in the surrounding solution.

Giant lipid vesicles under electric field pulses assessed by non invasive imaging.

We present experimental results regarding the effects of electric pulses on giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs). We have used phase contrast and coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy as relevant optical approaches to gain insight into membrane changes under electropermeabilization. No addition of exogenous molecules (lipid analogue, fluorescent dye) was needed. Therefore, experiments were performed on pure lipid systems avoiding possible artefacts linked to their use. Structural membrane changes were assessed by loss of contrast inside the GUVs due to sucrose and glucose mixing. Our observations, performed at the single vesicle level, indicate these changes are under the control of the number of pulses and field intensity. Larger number of pulses enhances membrane alterations. A threshold value of the field intensity must be applied to allow exchange of molecules between GUVs and the external medium. This threshold depends on the size of the vesicles, the larger GUVs being affected at lower electric field strengths than the smaller ones. Our experimental data are well described by a simple model in which molecule entry is driven by direct exchange. The CARS microscopic study of the effect of pulse duration confirms that pulses, in the ms time range, induce loss of lipids and membrane deformations facing the electrodes.

Electromediated formation of DNA complexes with cell membranes and its consequences for gene delivery.

Electroporation is a physical method to induce the uptake of therapeutic drugs and DNA, by eukaryotic cells and tissues. The phenomena behind electro-mediated membrane permeabilization to plasmid DNA have been shown to be significantly more complex than those for small molecules. Small molecules cross the permeabilized membrane by diffusion whereas plasmid DNA first interacts with the electropermeabilized part of the cell surface, forming localized aggregates. The dynamics of this process is still poorly understood because direct observations have been limited to scales of the order of seconds. Here, cells are electropermeabilized in the presence of plasmid DNA and monitored with a temporal resolution of 2 ms. This allows us to show that during the first pulse application, plasmid complexes, or aggregates, start to form at distinct sites on the cell membrane. FRAP measurements show that the positions of these sites are remarkably immobile during the application of further pluses. A theoretical model is proposed to explain the appearance of distinct interaction sites, the quantitative increase in DNA and also their immobility leading to a tentative explanation for the success of electro-mediated gene delivery.

A new method for measuring edge tensions and stability of lipid bilayers: effect of membrane composition.

We report a novel and facile method for measuring edge tensions of lipid membranes. The approach is based on electroporation of giant unilamellar vesicles and analysis of the pore closure dynamics. We applied this method to evaluate the edge tension in membranes with four different compositions: egg phosphatidylcholine (eggPC), dioleoylphosphatidylcholine (DOPC), and mixtures of DOPC with cholesterol and dioleoylphosphatidylethanolamine. Our data confirm previous results for eggPC and DOPC. The addition of 17 mol % cholesterol to the DOPC membrane causes an increase in the membrane edge tension. On the contrary, when the same fraction of dioleoylphosphatidylethanolamine is added to the membrane, a decrease in the edge tension is observed, which is an unexpected result considering the inverted-cone shape geometry of the molecule. It is presumed that interlipid hydrogen bonding is the origin of this behavior. Furthermore, cholesterol was found to lower the lysis tension of DOPC bilayers. This behavior differs from that observed on bilayers made of stearoyloleoylphosphatidylcholine, suggesting that cholesterol influences the membrane mechanical stability in a lipid-specific manner.

Observations of the mechanisms of electromediated DNA uptake--from vesicles to tissues.

We discuss experimental observations of DNA uptake induced by electropermeabilisation. First we describe how experiments on giant unilamelar vesicles can be used to understand the effect of electric fields on lipid membranes and the associated transfer of DNA across the plasma membrane. We then discuss how DNA interacts with electropermeabilised cells in culture and how gene expression is correlated to observations of interactions between DNA and the cell membrane. Finally we discuss how DNA uptake occurs and can be optimized for the most medically relevant case of tissues.

Visualization of membrane loss during the shrinkage of giant vesicles under electropulsation.

We study the effect of permeabilizing electric fields applied to two different types of giant unilamellar vesicles, the first formed from EggPC lipids and the second formed from DOPC lipids. Experiments on vesicles of both lipid types show a decrease in vesicle radius, which is interpreted as being due to lipid loss during the permeabilization process. We show that the decrease in size can be qualitatively explained as a loss of lipid area, which is proportional to the area of the vesicle that is permeabilized. Three possible modes of membrane loss were directly observed: pore formation, vesicle formation, and tubule formation.

What is (still not) known of the mechanism by which electroporation mediates gene transfer and expression in cells and tissues.

Cell membranes can be transiently permeabilized under application of electric pulses. This treatment allows hydrophilic therapeutic molecules, such as anticancer drugs and DNA, to enter into cells and tissues. This process, called electropermeabilization or electroporation, has been rapidly developed over the last decade to deliver genes to tissues and organs, but there is a general agreement that very little is known about what is really occurring during membrane electropermeabilization. It is well accepted that the entry of small molecules, such as anticancer drugs, occurs mostly through simple diffusion after the pulse while the entry of macromolecules, such as DNA, occurs through a multistep mechanism involving the electrophoretically driven interaction of the DNA molecule with the destabilized membrane during the pulse and then its passage across the membrane. Therefore, successful DNA electrotransfer into cells depends not only on cell permeabilization but also on the way plasmid DNA interacts with the plasma membrane and, once into the cytoplasm, migrates towards the nucleus. The focus of this review is to describe the different aspects of what is known of the mechanism of membrane permeabilization and associated gene transfer and, by doing so, what are the actual limits of the DNA delivery into cells.

Gene electrotransfer: from biophysical mechanisms to in vivo applications : Part 2 - In vivo developments and present clinical applications.

Gene electrotransfer can be obtained not just on single cells in diluted suspension. For more than 10 years, this is a quasi routine strategy in tissue on the living animal and a few clinical trials have now been approved. New problems have been brought by the close contacts of cells in tissue both on the local field distribution and on the access of DNA to target cells. They need to be solved to provide a further improvement in the efficacy and safety of protein expression. There is a competition between gene transfer and cell destruction. Nevertheless, present results are indicative that electrotransfer is a promising approach for gene therapy. High level and long-lived expression of proteins can be obtained in muscles. This is used for a successful method of electrovaccination.

Gene electrotransfer: from biophysical mechanisms to in vivo applications : Part 1- Biophysical mechanisms.

Electropulsation is one of the nonviral methods successfully used to deliver genes into living cells in vitro and in vivo. This approach shows promise in the field of gene and cellular therapies. The present review focuses on the processes supporting gene electrotransfer in vitro. In the first part, we will report the events occurring before, during, and after pulse application in the specific field of plasmid DNA electrotransfer at the cell level. A critical discussion of the present theoretical considerations about membrane electropermeabilization and the transient structures involved in the plasmid uptake follows in a second part.