Protein-membrane interaction probed by single plasmonic nanoparticles.

We present a nanosized and addressable sensor platform based on membrane coated plasmonic particles and show unequivocally the covering with lipid bilayers as well as the subsequent detection of streptavidin binding to biotinylated lipids. The binding is detected on membrane covered gold nanorods by monitoring the spectral shift by fast single particle spectroscopy (fastSPS) on many particles in parallel. Our approach allows for local analysis of protein interaction with biological membranes as a function of the lateral composition of phase separated membranes.