Wetting and freezing of water on supported bilayer lipid membranes

Temperature-dependent elastic incoherent neutron scattering shows qualitatively different behavior for water associated with single bilayers of the charge-neutral DMPC (dimyristoylphosphocholine) lipid than for the anionic DMPG (dimyristoylphosphoglycerol) bilayer supported on an SiO$_{\mathrm{2}}$-coated silicon substrate. For the neutral DMPC membrane, the membrane-associated water shows a step-like freezing transition somewhat below the bulk freezing point followed by a continuous freezing behavior and, on heating, a step-like melting transition at the bulk melting point of 273 K [2]. In contrast, water near the anionic DMPG membrane shows only continuous freezing that extends to much lower temperatures than for DMPC and continuous melting that is complete well below the bulk melting point. We suggest that these results may be explained by a film-like water structure in the DMPG case owing to the hydrophilic nature of the membrane surface, while most of the water in the DMPC system is bulk-like and dewets from this more hydrophobic membrane surface. [2] M. Bai \textit{et al}., Europhys. Lett. \textbf{98}, 48006 (2012).