All posts by Linda Hirst

liquid crystals, Soft Matter

Congratulations Dr Melton!

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Nathan Melton, our most recent graduate walked at UC Merced commencement this month. Nathan’s recent work, focused on topological defects in liquid crystals with a new paper just out last month in the journal Nanomaterials.

“Phase-transition-driven nanoparticle assembly in liquid crystal droplets” Charles N. Melton, Sheida T. Riahinasab, Amir Keshavarz, Benjamin J. Stokes and Linda S. Hirst, Nanomaterials, 8, 146 (2018). Link

Dr Melton and Dr Hirst

Nathan has already started work as a postdoctoral scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab at the Advanced Light Source!

active matter, Biomaterials, Soft Matter

Active Matter in Biology:Nature News and Views

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Recently Prof Hirst authored a News and Views in Nature focussed on two exciting articles about the cell epithelium as active matter.

“Evidence has been found that a biological tissue might behave like a liquid crystal. Even more remarkably, topological defects in this liquid-crystal system seem to influence cell behaviour. A materials physicist and a biologist discuss what the findings mean for researchers in their fields”.

Read the full article here

Biological physics: Liquid crystals in living tissue

 

active matter, Biomaterials, Biopolymers, semiflexible polymers, Soft Matter

Studying microtubule spools

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“Understanding the role of transport velocity in biomotor-powered microtubule spool assembly“

Amanda J. Tan, Dail E. Chapman, Linda S. Hirst and Jing Xu

In this new paper we examined the sensitivity of microtubule spools to transport velocity.
Perhaps surprisingly, we determined that the steady-state
number and size of spools remained constant over a seven-fold
range of velocities. Our data on the kinetics of spool assembly
further suggest that the main mechanisms underlying spool growth
vary during assembly.
Read the paper in RSC Advances here
active matter, Biopolymers, graduate studies, Soft Matter

Amanda Tan – winner 2016 faculty mentor fellowship

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Congratulations to physics graduate student Amanda Tan for winning a UC Merced “faculty mentor” fellowship.  This prestigious fellowship is awarded to prepare future faculty and provides a year’s funding plus a travel stipend.

Amanda’s research project focuses on active biological materials, in particular microtubules and molecular motors. She is collaborating with the Xu lab at UC Merced and will have her first paper with the group out soon.

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The award assists recipients in acquiring and developing advanced research skills under faculty mentorship and is aimed at increasing the number of students who complete their Ph.D. degree and successfully acquire a faculty appointment.

 

 

Biomaterials, featured, Lipids, Soft Matter

Using molecular motors to extract lipid tubules

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A Simple Experimental Model to Investigate Force Range for Membrane Nanotube Formation

Chai Lor1, Joseph D. Lopes2, Michelle K. Mattson-Hoss3, Jing Xu2* and Linda S. Hirst2*
  • 1Biological Engineering and Small-scale Technologies Graduate Program, School of Engineering, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA
  • 2Physics Department, School of Natural Science, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA
  • 3Developmental and Cell Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

fmats-03-00006-g001The presence of membrane tubules in living cells is essential to many biological processes. In cells, one mechanism to form nanosized lipid tubules is via molecular motor induced bilayer extraction. In this paper, we describe a simple experimental model to investigate the forces required for lipid tube formation using kinesin motors anchored to 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC) vesicles. Previous related studies have used molecular motors actively pulling on the membrane to extract a nanotube. Here, we invert the system geometry; molecular motors are used as static anchors linking DOPC vesicles to a two-dimensional microtubule network and an external flow is introduced to generate nanotubes facilitated by the drag force. We found that a drag force of ≈7 pN was sufficient for tubule extraction for vesicles ranging from 1 to 2 μm in radius. By our method, we found that the force generated by a single molecular motor was sufficient for membrane tubule extraction from a spherical lipid vesicle.

Biomaterials, featured, graduate studies, Lipids, Soft Matter

Congratulations Dr Lor!

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Dr Chai Lor successfully defended his PhD thesis in the BEST (Bioengineering and small scale technologies) program on October 26th. Chai was a bioengineering undergraduate at UC Merced and a member of the first graduating class.

“Phase Behavior and Nanotube Formation in Lipid Membranes”

Biological cells are protected by a complex barrier called the lipid membrane. The lipid membrane is a soft material structure consisting of many lipid molecules held together by hydrophobic forces in an aqueous solution. Two simple experimental models were employed to investigate the role of specific lipid molecules in biological membranes. The first model investigated the phase behavior of the binary lipid mixture, 1-dipalmitoyl-2-docosahexaenoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine (DHA-PE) and 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC), using small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) and wide-angle x-ray scattering (WAXS). Our results shows that DHA-PE induces phase separation into a DHA rich liquid crystalline (Lα) phase and a DHA poor gel (Lβ’) phase at overall DHA-PE concentrations as low as 0.1mol%. In addition, we find that the structure of the Lβ’ phase, from which the DHA-PE molecules are largely excluded, is modified in the phase-separated state at low DHA-PE concentrations, with a decrease in bilayer thickness of 1.34nm for 0.1mol% at room temperature compared to pure DPPC bilayers. The second model investigated the formation of lipid nanotubes using an anchor system consisting of lipids, kinesin molecular motors, and microtubules in a flow cell. Lipid tubulation was conducted on two different membranes, 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC) and DPPC. Lipid nanotubes were pulled from anchored giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) by drag force generated from the flow inside the channel. The results showed that DPPC membranes cannot generate lipid nanotubes while DOPC can, which was expected. We find that a drag force of approximately ≈7.9 pN is sufficient for tubule extraction and that it only requires 1-2 kinesin motor proteins for anchoring the GUV.

“Low concentrations of docosahexanoic acid significantly modify membrane structure and phase behavior”
C. Lor and L.S. Hirst, MEMBRANES, 5(4), 857-874 Link (2015)

 

Biomaterials, optical trapping

Soft particle trapping in a dual-beam optical trap

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Stability and instability for low refractive-index-contrast particle trapping in a dual-beam optical trap

Alison Huff, Charles N. Melton, Linda S. Hirst, and Jay E. Sharping

Biomedical optics express, 6 (10), 3812-3819 (2015)

A dual-beam optical trap is used to trap and manipulate dielectric particles. When the refractive index of these particles is comparable to that of the surrounding medium, equilibrium trapping locations within the system shift from stable to unstable depending on fiber separation and particle size. This is due to to the relationship between gradient and scattering forces. We experimentally and computationally study the transitions between stable and unstable trapping of poly(methyl methacrylate) beads for a range of parameters relevant to experimental setups involving giant unilamellar vesicles. We present stability maps for various fiber separations and particle sizes, and find that careful attention to particle size and configuration is necessary to obtain reproducible quantitative results for soft matter stretching experiments.

Read the full paper here

Bifurcation plots showing the axial stability locations vs. particle radius for three different traps with fiber separations of (a) 45 μm, (b) 92.9 μm, and (c) 129.1 μm. The red dots represent the simulated stable trapping location, and the symbols represent experimentally observed stably trapped particles. The trap center is located at z=0. Trapping locations are shown schematically within (c). The error bars were determined empirically through measurements of the inner and outer edges of both the fiber and beads.
Bifurcation plots showing the axial stability locations vs. particle radius for three different traps with fiber separations of (a) 45 μm, (b) 92.9 μm, and (c) 129.1 μm. The red dots represent the simulated stable trapping location, and the symbols represent experimentally observed stably trapped particles. The trap center is located at z=0. Trapping locations are shown schematically within (c). The error bars were determined empirically through measurements of the inner and outer edges of both the fiber and beads.
featured, liquid crystals, Soft Matter

Kyle Kabasaras, CAMP summer student, presents research at UC Merced Symposium

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This summer Kyle Kabasaras presented his original research project at the UC Merced undergrad research symposium.

Investigating quantum dot assembly in a cholesteric liquid crystal

An ongoing goal in condensed matter physics is directly controlling the self-assembly of quantum dots (QDs) into specific structures while maintaining their original electronic and optical properties. One method of controlling the self-assembly of QDs is to disperse them within a liquid crystal (LC) medium and apply a variety of thermal stimulations. Recently, our lab developed a method of creating spherical, vesicle-shaped QDs within a nematic LC. Vesicle formation depends on the QD concentration in the LC as well as the LC’s intermolecular dispersion forces and thermal properties. In this project, we investigate the dispersion of CdSe/ZnS (core/shell) QDs in a cholesteric LC (CLC) medium and predict the QD aggregations to cluster near the LC defects. By varying parameters such as QD concentration and temperature, we exploit the CLC’s sensitive optical and thermal properties. To observe these effects, we apply spectrophotometry, polarized optical microscopy, and fluorescence microscopy. These techniques highlight the aggregation of QDs within the host CLC and identify how LC phase transitions determine where QDaggregates form. This work illustrates the possibility of new LC-based QD devices, and we will continue by exploring the lasing potential of our sample.

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CAMP is a National Science Foundation funded project to promote undergraduate research participation.