Structural and dynamical studies from bio-mimetic systems: an overview

Membranes are ubiquitous in living materials and carry out highly specialised functions. They surround both cells (plasma membranes) and organelles within cells and represent the surface through which interaction occurs with the outside world. Cell membranes consist mostly of lipids and proteins. Scientists have been well aware for a long time of the importance of lipid structural properties for understanding functional mechanisms at membrane surfaces. Neutron scattering techniques are powerful tools for the characterization of the structure and dynamics of bio-mimetic systems and much progress has been done in recent years since they give the unique access to microscopic structure and dynamics at length scales of intermolecular or atomic distances. The optimization of instrumentation and sample preparation techniques, as well as the new possibilities offered by protein deuteration, have opened the way to studies of lipid/protein interactions that were impossible in the past. It is now possible to engineer systems that allow one to look at the insertion of biomolecules into membranes and to determine very accurately the structure as well as the dynamics of the interaction.