Structure of Meibomian lpid films at the air-water interface using

DOI

The tear film of the eye has an outer meibomian lipid layer (TFLL) that allows tears to spread across the eye and remain stable. Our Langmuir trough and other studies show that meibum forms duplex films that have unique physical properties not emulated by its major components: cholesterol and wax esters (WEs); and the surfactant (omega-acyl)-hydroxy-fatty acids (OAHFAs). Our X-ray reflectivity experiments show it has a 3-phase structure at low concentrations and some crystalline structures at high concentrations. We plan to seed meibomian lipid films with deuterated WEs and deuterated OAHFAs and use neutron scattering to determine the structure of the TFLL. It is proposed that the lipids will be anchored to the surface by the ester bond at low pressures, but these will leave the surface at higher pressures leaving OAHFAs at the surface anchored by the carboxyl group.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.24090436
Metadata Access https://icatisis.esc.rl.ac.uk/oaipmh/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=oai:icatisis.esc.rl.ac.uk:inv/24090436
Provenance
Creator Professor Thomas Millar; Dr Burkhardt Schuett; Dr Shiwani Raju
Publisher ISIS Neutron and Muon Source
Publication Year 2016
Rights CC-BY Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Contact isisdata(at)stfc.ac.uk
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Discipline Photon- and Neutron Geosciences
Temporal Coverage Begin 2013-03-24T05:02:33Z
Temporal Coverage End 2013-05-15T14:42:51Z