Trehalose-Induced Variation in Mechanical Properties of Vesicles in Aqueous Solution

The effect of the trehalose incorporation on the nanomechanical properties of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine vesicles was studied using atomic force microscope (AFM) on mica surface. The vesicles were prepared only with the variation in the trehalose concentration and adsorbed on the mica surface. After the morphology of the adsorbed vesicles was characterized, the behavior of an AFM tip into the vesicle was monitored using the plot of the tip displacement versus the tip deflection. It was observed that the breakthrough of the tip into the vesicles occurred two times. Each breakthrough represented each penetration of the tip into each layer. Force data prior to the first breakthrough fitted well with the Hertzian model to estimate Young’s modulus and bending modulus of the vesicles. It was found that the Young’s modulus and bending modulus decreased proportionally to the increase in the trehalose concentration up to 0.5 of trehalose to lipid. However, above 0.5, the moduli were a little varied with the increase. In the identical measurements at glucose, just a slight change in the moduli was observed with the increase in the glucose composition from 0 % glucose up to even 2:1 ratio of glucose:lipid. These results in the mechanical properties seem attributable to the osmotic and volumetric effects on the headgroup packing disruption.