Harnessing Dye-Induced Local Heating in Lipid Membranes: A Path to Near-Infrared Light-Modulated Artificial Synaptic Vesicles.

ABSTRACT: Optical heating coupled with near-infrared (NIR) light and photothermal materials enables local heating within biospecimens, minimizing undesirable thermal damage. Here, we demonstrated that photothermally heating lipid bilayers embedded with a phthalocyanine dye (VPc) efficiently perturbs the bilayers, resulting in increased permeability. Notably, microscopic studies revealed that the changes in membrane permeability may not follow the conventional mechanism of temperature-sensitive liposomes, which involve a bulk temperature increase that induces a phase transition across the entire lipid bilayer. Furthermore, the heat generated by NIR laser illumination rarely diffused into the surrounding environment, and the dye was located within the bilayers at the molecular level, where it effectiv

SUBMITTER: Sarker SR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12367230 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature