| Issue |
EPL
Volume 91, Number 2, July 2010
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 28001 | |
| Number of page(s) | 6 | |
| Section | Interdisciplinary Physics and Related Areas of Science and Technology | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/91/28001 | |
| Published online | 04 August 2010 | |
Confinement-induced phase transition in a DNA-lipid hydrated complex
1
Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo - Rua do Matão Travessa R Nr. 187, Brasil
2
Université de Bordeaux, Centre de recherche Paul-Pascal, CNRS - 115 avenue du Docteur-Schweitzer, F-33600 Pessac, France, EU
Received:
29
April
2010
Accepted:
7
July
2010
We study the effect of the soft confinement by fluid lipid bilayers on the spatial organisation of DNA molecules in a DNA-zwitterionic lipid hydrated lamellar complex. The confinement is increased by dehydrating the complex in a controlled way, which leads to a decrease of the water channel thickness separating the periodically stacked bilayers. Using grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering on an oriented thin film, we probe in situ as dehydration proceeds the structure of the DNA-lipid complex. A structural phase transition is evidenced, where an apparently disordered phase of DNA rods embedded within the one-dimensionally ordered lipid lamellar phase observed at high hydration is replaced by a 2D hexagonal structure of DNA molecules intercalated between the lipid bilayers.
PACS: 82.70.-y – Disperse systems; complex fluids / 68.18.Jk – Phase transitions in liquid thin films / 87.15.-v – Biomolecules: structure and physical properties
© EPLA, 2010
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