Bioadhesion and the dewetting transition

Abstract

The article discusses interferometric experiments carried out on a number of receptor/ligand (‘linker’) based bioadhesion systems. The aim was to quantitatively test the applicability of wetting theory to bioadhesion. In all cases phase-separation phenomena were observed, with highly heterogeneous adhesion disks, which is not consistent with a simple equilibrium wetting description. We present both theoretical and experimental evidence that these phenomena can be best understood in terms of two concepts: (I) a membrane-mediated linker–linker attraction, and (II) a linker-controlled dewetting transition.