Effect of Osmotic Stress on Membrane Fusion on Solid Substrate

There is currently a lack of comprehensive understanding of osmotic effect on lipid vesicle fusion on solid oxide surface. The question has both biological and biomedical implications. We studied the effect by quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring using NaCl, sucrose as osmolytes, and two different osmotic stress imposition methods, which allowed us to separate the osmotic effects from the solute impacts. Osmotic stress was found to have limited influence on the fusion kinetics, independently of the direction of the gradient. Further atomic force microscopy experiments and energy consideration implied that osmotic stress spends the majority of chemical potential energy associated in directed transport of water across membrane. Its contribution to vesicle deformation and fusion on substrate is therefore small compared to that of adhesion.