Structural examination of self-assembled floating membranes below grafted lipid SAMs

Robust, reliable, and protein-free bacterial membrane mimicking systems compatible with the high through put screening techniques will largely facilitate the discovery of new antibiotics. None of the published approaches have demonstrated the functionality beyond the scientific experimental level, which is required by the pharmaceutical industry. Thus, systematic, reliable in vitro screening of membrane-targeting drug candidates remains a challenging task. We have developed an experimental system to mimic Gram-negative bacterial membrane based on molecular self-assembly and vesicle fusion. The neutron –based techniques are the only ones which allow dissecting the nano-scale vertical architecture of lipid membranes and unambiguously determining buried aqueous inter-layer. Therefore, neutron reflection study is a necessary prerequisite before starting large scale interaction analysis.