Real-time monitoring of heat transfer between gold nanoparticles and tethered bilayer lipid membranes

Plasmon resonance frequency irradiated gold nanoparticles (GNPs) have gained interest as a laser-targeted treatment for infections, tumors and for the controlled release of drugs in situ. Questions still remain, however, as to the efficiency of heat delivery within biological tissues and how this can be reliably determined. Here, we demonstrate how a nanomaterial-electrode interface that mimics cell membranes can detect the localized heat transfer characteristics arising from plasmon resonance frequency-matched laser excitation of GNPs. We demonstrate that the lipid bilayer membrane can be affected by conjugated GNP induced hyperthermia when irradiated with a laser power output as low as 135 nW/mu m(2). This is four orders of magnitude lower power than previously reported. By restricting the lateral movement of the lipids in the bilayer membrane, it was shown that the change in membrane conductance as a result of the heat transfer was due to the creation of transient lipidic toroidal pores within the membrane. We further demonstrate that the heat transfer from the GNPs alters diffusion rates of monomers of the gramicidin-A peptide within the lipid leaflets. This work highlights how targeted low laser power GNP hyperthermia treatments, in vivo, could play a dual role of interfering with both cell membrane morphology and dynamics, along with membrane protein function.