Observations of Membrane Domain Reorganization in Mechanically Compressed Artificial Cells

Tom Robinson*, Petra S. Dittrich

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) are considered to be the gold standard for assembling artificial cells from the bottom up. In this study, we investigated the behavior of such biomimetic vesicles as they were subjected to mechanical compression. A microfluidic device is presented that comprises a trap to capture GUVs and a microstamp that is deflected downwards to mechanically compress the trapped vesicle. After characterization of the device, we show that single-phase GUVs can be controllably compressed to a high degree of deformation (D=0.40) depending on the pressure applied to the microstamp. A permeation assay was implemented to show that vesicle bursting is prevented by water efflux. Next, we mechanically compressed GUVs with co-existing liquid-ordered and liquid-disordered membrane phases. Upon compression, we observed that the normally stable lipid domains reorganized themselves across the surface and fused into larger domains. This phenomenon, observed here in a model membrane system, not only gives us insights into how the multicomponent membranes of artificial cells behave, but might also have interesting consequences for the role of lipid rafts in biological cells that are subjected to compressive forces in a natural environment.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2666-2673
Number of pages8
JournalChemBioChem
Volume20
Issue number20
Early online date1 Oct 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Oct 2019

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • artificial cells
  • giant unilamellar vesicles
  • lipid rafts
  • membrane domains
  • microfluidics
  • synthetic biology

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