Preparation and mechanical characterisation of giant unilamellar vesicles by a microfluidic method

Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) have a wide range of applications in biology and synthetic biology. As a result, new approaches for constructing GUVs using microfluidic techniques are emerging but there are still significant shortcomings in the control of fundamental vesicle structural parameters...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Lab on a chip 2015-01, Vol.15 (2), p.557-562
Main Authors: Karamdad, K, Law, R V, Seddon, J M, Brooks, N J, Ces, O
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bend strength
Biology
Chips
Droplets
Hemolysin Proteins - chemistry
Hemolysin Proteins - metabolism
Lipids
Mathematical analysis
Microfluidic Analytical Techniques - instrumentation
Microfluidic Analytical Techniques - methods
Microfluidics
Microscopy, Fluorescence
Oils - chemistry
Phosphatidylcholines - chemistry
Phospholipids - chemistry
Rheology
Rhodamines - chemistry
Self assembly
Unilamellar Liposomes - chemistry
Unilamellar Liposomes - metabolism
Vesicles
Water - chemistry
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Summary:Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) have a wide range of applications in biology and synthetic biology. As a result, new approaches for constructing GUVs using microfluidic techniques are emerging but there are still significant shortcomings in the control of fundamental vesicle structural parameters such as size, lamellarity, membrane composition and internal contents. We have developed a novel microfluidic platform to generate compositionally-controlled GUVs. Water-in-oil (W/O) droplets formed in a lipid-containing oil flow are transferred across an oil-water interface, facilitating the self-assembly of a phospholipid bilayer. In addition, for the first time we have studied the mechanical properties of the resultant lipid bilayers of the microfluidic GUVs. Using fluctuation analysis we were able to calculate the values for bending rigidity of giant vesicles assembled on chip and demonstrate that these correlate strongly with those of traditional low throughput strategies such as electroformation.
ISSN:1473-0197
1473-0189
DOI:10.1039/c4lc01277a