ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Polymer interactions with phospholipid monolayers: Understanding formation of polymer-stabilized nanodiscs

Abstract: Polymer stabilized phospholipid nanodiscs are gaining rapid interest as a detergent free method of extracting membrane proteins from cell membranes and maintaining them in an active state in solution. Although the structure of the discs is established, with the polymer belt wrapping the exposed hydrophobic tails of a ~10nm disc of lipid bilayer, it is not known how this structure forms from the initially intact lipid membrane. Formation speed of the discs depends on monolayer composition but so far our, and similar studies by others have used largely simple phospholipid layers. In this experiment we aim to use the new higher flux on INTER to follow the kinetics of adsorption and/or penetration of polymer to more complex lipid monolayers at the air water interface containing unsaturated and saturated lipids, as well as to characterise the evolving structure of the lipid/polymer layer. We will vary the surface pressure and composition of the lipid membrane to investigate the effects of fluidity and phase separation, and the polymer type and hydrophobic/hydrophilic balance. These experiments will access timescales inaccessible on other neutron reflectometers, to improve our understanding of how polymer-stabilized nanodiscs form, which will improve their future application and uptake in membrane protein biology.

Principal Investigator: Professor Karen Edler
Experimenter: Dr Hanna Wacklin-Knecht
Experimenter: Dr Thomas Arnold
Experimenter: Dr Ellen Wilson
Local Contact: Dr Stephen Hall
Experimenter: Mr Ronak Kakadiya
Experimenter: Dr Subramee Sarkar
Experimenter: Dr Glenn Coope

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB2420306

ISIS Experiment Number: RB2420306

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Professor Karen Edler et al; (2025): Polymer interactions with phospholipid monolayers: Understanding formation of polymer-stabilized nanodiscs, STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB2420306

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.