On-chip generation of monodisperse giant unilamellar lipid vesicles containing quantum dots

Abstract

Monodispersed lipid vesicles have been used as a drug delivery vehicle and a biochemical reactor. To generate monodispersed lipid vesicles in the nano- to micrometer size range, an extrusion step should be included in conventional hand-shaking method of lipid vesicle synthesis. In addition, lipid vesicles as a drug carrier still need to be improved to effectively encapsulate concentrated biomolecules such as cells, proteins, and target drugs. To overcome these limitations, this paper reports a new microfluidic platform for continuous synthesis of small-sized (∼10 μm) giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) containing quantum dots (QDs) as a nanosized model drug. To generate GUVs, we introduced an additional cross-flow to break vesicles into small size. 1,2 - dimyristoyl-sn-glycero - 3 - phosphocholine (DMPC) in an octanol-chloroform mixture was used in the construction of self-assembled membrane. Consequently, we have successfully demonstrated the fabrication of monodispersed GUVs with 7-12 μm diameter containing QDs. The proposed synthesis method of cell-sized GUVs would be highly desirable for applications such as multipurpose drug encapsulation and delivery.

Keywords: Encapsulation; Giant unilamellar lipid vesicles; Microdroplets; Microfluidics; Spherical microdroplets.