Stacked 2D Crystalline Sheets of the Membrane-Protein Bacteriorhodopsin: A Specular and Diffuse Reflectivity Study

I. Koltover; T. Salditt; J.-L. Rigaud; C. R. Safinya

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.2494

Stacked 2D Crystalline Sheets of the Membrane-Protein Bacteriorhodopsin: A Specular and Diffuse Reflectivity Study

I. Koltover, T. Salditt, J.-L. Rigaud, and C. R. Safinya

Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 2494 – Published 21 September 1998

Abstract

We report a specular and diffuse x-ray reflectivity study of a model multilayer membrane-protein system. Native membranes containing two-dimensional crystals of the membrane-protein bacteriorhodopsin were fused into giant $(10 μ m)$ single-crystalline patches and stacked to form perfect orientationally aligned multilayers. The diffuse scattering indicates a conformal buckling of the membranes on length scales of a few hundred angstroms. Analysis of the truncation rods allows us to elucidate the intermembrane correlations of the proteins at different hydration levels of the multilayer.

Received 18 May 1998

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.2494

Authors & Affiliations

I. Koltover¹, T. Salditt^1,*, J.-L. Rigaud², and C. R. Safinya¹

¹Materials Department, Physics Department, and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106
²Institut Curie, Section de Recherche, Paris, France