Langmuir, Vol.25, No.22, 12968-12973, 2009
Studies of Dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) Monolayers Embedded with Endohedral Metallofullerene (DY@C-82)
Toxicological effects of carbon nanomaterials have attracted increasing attention. In this work, we studied the interaction between Dy@C-82 and dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) in it monolayer at the N-2/Tris buffer interface by thermodynamic analysis of surface pressure-area (pi-A) and Surface potential-area (Delta V-A) isotherms. Dy@C-82 was found to impact considerably more on the physical properties of the monolayer than C-60 because of its elliptical structure and distinctive dipole. The addition of Dy@C-82 essentially closed down the liquid expanded-liquid condensed (LE-LC) phase coexistence region of the mixed monolayers. Furthermore, Dy@C-82 reduced elasticity of the monolayers, its indicated by the decreasing elastic modulus (C-s(-1)) with increasing molar ratio of Dy@C-82 (X-Dy@C82) Brewster angle microscopy (BAM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) revealed that the dispersion Dy@C-82 depend on the state of the mixed films. Dy@C-82,formed floes front aggregation of Dy@C-82 towers in the LE and LE-LC coexistence regions, accompanied by gradual falling down of Dy@C-82 from the towers and permeation of the falling metallofullerenes into the LE phase during their compression-induced reorientation process. In the LC and solid phases, the Dy@C-82 floes were dispersed into isolated towers, accompanied by the partial squeezing out of the embedded metallofullerenes to above the DPPC monolayer. The continuous falling down of Dy@C-82 from the towers resulted in their height decrease but diameter enlargement. When the Surface pressure was increased to the kink value (53 mN/m), Dy@C-82 was almost completely extruded from the DPPC monolayers. These findings are believed to be important for understanding the impact of fullerences, metallofullerenes, and nanomaterials in general oil biological membranes.