Highly uniform, strongly correlated fluorinated lipid nanodomains embedded in biological membrane models

Synthetic, fluorinated lipids incorporated into phospholipid membranes form highly uniform self-assembled lipid nanodomains. The size of nanodomains beyond optical resolution can quantitatively be determined using grazing-incidence x-ray diffraction. The long-range interaction can reach up to the distance that is eight times larger than the domain size, which can be interpreted within the theoretical framework of two-dimensional colloidal crystallization. Coupling of bioactive molecules to lipid head groups would allow for the creation of highly uniform and strongly correlated functional nanodomains, which can be used to study the influence of molecular confinement on the cooperative interactions in biology.