Multiphoton excitation fluorescence microscopy in planar membrane systems

J. BREWER; J. BERNARDINO DE LA SERNA; K. WAGNER; LUIS A. BAGATOLLI

BIOCHIMICA ET BIOPHYSICA ACTA-BIOMEMBRANES

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2010 vol. 1798 p. 1301 - 1301

0005-2736

he feasibility of applying multiphoton excitation fluorescence microscopy-related techniques in planar membrane systems, such as lipid monolayers at the air-water interface (named Langmuir films), is presented and discussed in this paper. The non-linear fluorescence microscopy approach, allows obtaining spatially and temporally resolved information by exploiting the fluorescent properties of particular fluorescence probes. For instance, the use of environmental sensitive probes, such as LAURDAN, allows performing measurements using the LAURDAN generalized polarization function that in turn is sensitive to the local lipid packing in the membrane. The fact that LAURDAN exhibit homogeneous distribution in monolayers, particularly in systems displaying domain coexistence, overcomes a general problem observed when "classical" fluorescence probes are used to label Langmuir films, i.e. the inability to obtain simultaneous information from the two coexisting membrane regions. Also, the well d