UC Berkeley

This review summarizes the current state of knowledge regarding interfacial properties of very complex biological colloids, specifically, human meibum and tear lipids, and their interactions with proteins similar to the proteins found in aqueous part of human tears. Tear lipids spread as thin films over the surface of tear-film aqueous and play crucial roles in tear-film stability and overall ocular-surface health. The vast majority of papers published to date report interfacial properties of meibum-lipid monolayers spread on various aqueous sub-phases, often containing model proteins, in Langmuir trough. However, it is well established that natural human ocular tear lipids exist as multilayered films with a thickness between 30 and 100nm, that is very much disparate from 1 to 2nm thick meibum monolayers. We employed sessile-bubble tensiometry to study the dynamic interfacial and rheological properties of reconstituted multilayered human tear-lipid films. Small amounts (0.5-1μg) of human tear lipids were deposited on an air-bubble surface to produce tear-lipid films in thickness range 30-100nm corresponding to ocular lipid films. Thus, we were able to overcome major Langmuir-trough method limitations because ocular tear lipids can be safely harvested only in minute, sub-milligram quantities, insufficient for Langmuir through studies. Sessile-bubble method is demonstrated to be a versatile tool for assessing conventional synthetic surfactants adsorption/desorption dynamics at an air-aqueous solution interface. (Svitova T., Weatherbee M., Radke C.J. Dynamics of surfactant sorption at the air/water interface: continuous-flow tensiometry. J. Colloid Interf. Sci. 2003;261:1170-179). The augmented flow-sessile-bubble setup, with step-strain relaxation module for dynamic interfacial rheological properties and high-precision syringe pump to generate larger and slow interfacial area expansions-contractions, was developed and employed in our studies. We established that this method is uniquely suitable for examination of multilayered lipid-film interfacial properties. Recently it was compellingly proven that chemical composition of human tear lipids extracted from whole tears is substantially different from that of meibum lipids. To be exact, healthy human tear lipids contain 8-16% of polar lipids, similar to lung lipids, and they are mostly double-tailed phospholipids, with C16 and longer alkyl chains. Rationally, one would assume that the results obtained for meibum lipids, devoid of surface-active components such as phospholipids, and, above all, in a form of monolayers, are not pertinent or useful for elucidating behavior and stability of an averaged 60-nm thick ocular tear-lipid films in vivo. The advantage of sessile-bubble technique, specifically, using a small amount of lipids required to attain multilayered films, unlocks the prospect of evaluating and comparing the interfacial properties of human tear lipids collected from a single individual, typically 100-150μg. This is in sharp contrast with several milligrams of lipids that would be required to build equally thick films for Langmuir-trough experiments. The results of our studies provided in-depth understanding of the mechanisms responsible for properties and stability of human tear-lipid films in vivo. Here we summarize recent publications and our latest findings regarding human tear-lipid interfacial properties, their chemical composition, and their interaction with model proteins mimicking the proteins found in human tear-aqueous phase.