Graphene-based sensing of oxygen transport through pulmonary membranes

Mijung Kim, Marilyn Porras-Gomez and Cecilia Leal ()
Additional contact information
Mijung Kim: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Marilyn Porras-Gomez: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Cecilia Leal: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Lipid-protein complexes are the basis of pulmonary surfactants covering the respiratory surface and mediating gas exchange in lungs. Cardiolipin is a mitochondrial lipid overexpressed in mammalian lungs infected by bacterial pneumonia. In addition, increased oxygen supply (hyperoxia) is a pathological factor also critical in bacterial pneumonia. In this paper we fabricate a micrometer-size graphene-based sensor to measure oxygen permeation through pulmonary membranes. Combining oxygen sensing, X-ray scattering, and Atomic Force Microscopy, we show that mammalian pulmonary membranes suffer a structural transformation induced by cardiolipin. We observe that cardiolipin promotes the formation of periodic protein–free inter–membrane contacts with rhombohedral symmetry. Membrane contacts, or stalks, promote a significant increase in oxygen gas permeation which may bear significance for alveoli gas exchange imbalance in pneumonia.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14825-9 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-14825-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14825-9

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().