Local measurements of phase transitions in Bacteriorhodopsin membrane

Phase transitions play an important role in biology. Specifically the thermodynamic stability of internal membrane proteins is an important issue of biophysics. Purple membrane from Halobacterium halobium contain bacteriorhodopsin (bR), an integral protein 70-80{\%} of whole mass is intramembraneous. There are heated debates in the field about the parameters of thermal denaturation of bR, such as the denaturation temperature, enthalpy etc. Recently, bR was proposed as a component of biomolecular electronics. Thus, reliable information about the phase transitions of supported samples of bR membranes is necessary. Phase transitions in polymer/biopolymer materials are associated with the large changes in mechanical properties of the samples. We developed the technique for the measurements of the temperature dependence of the mechanical properties with high spatial resolution. This technique is based on the measurements of the contact stiffness of the atomic force microscopy tip -- sample system as a function of temperature.