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BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES / BIOPHYSICS
Unilamellar vesicle formation and encapsulation by microfluidic jetting

Jeanne C. Stachowiak^*, David L. Richmond, Thomas H. Li^*, Allen P. Liu, Sapun H. Parekh, and Daniel A. Fletcher^,,

*Department of Mechanical Engineering, Biophysics Graduate Group, and Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720

Edited by David Deamer, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, and accepted by the Editorial Board January 24, 2008 (received for review November 15, 2007)

Compartmentalization of biomolecules within lipid membranes is a fundamental requirement of living systems and an essential feature of many pharmaceutical therapies. However, applications of membrane-enclosed solutions of proteins, DNA, and other biologically active compounds have been limited by the difficulty of forming unilamellar vesicles with controlled contents in a repeatable manner. Here, we demonstrate a method for simultaneously creating and loading giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) using a pulsed microfluidic jet. Akin to blowing a bubble, the microfluidic jet deforms a planar lipid bilayer into a vesicle that is filled with solution from the jet and separates from the planar bilayer. In contrast with existing techniques, our method rapidly generates multiple monodisperse, unilamellar vesicles containing solutions of unrestricted composition and molecular weight. Using the microfluidic jetting technique, we demonstrate repeatable encapsulation of 500-nm particles into GUVs and show that functional pore proteins can be incorporated into the vesicle membrane to mediate transport. The ability of microfluidic jetting to controllably encapsulate solutions inside of GUVs creates new opportunities for the study and use of compartmentalized biomolecular systems in science, industry, and medicine.

vortex | liposome | drug delivery | synthetic biology

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. D.D. is a guest editor invited by the Editorial Board.

This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0710875105/DC1.

To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Department of Bioengineering, University of California, 608B Stanley Hall 3220, Berkeley, CA 94720. E-mail: fletch{at}berkeley.edu

© 2008 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA

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