Methods for Forming Giant Unilamellar Fatty Acid Vesicles

Lauren A Lowe; Daniel W K Loo; Anna Wang

doi:10.1007/978-1-0716-1843-1_1

Methods for Forming Giant Unilamellar Fatty Acid Vesicles

Methods Mol Biol. 2022:2402:1-12. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1843-1_1.

Authors

Lauren A Lowe^#^{1

2}, Daniel W K Loo^#^{1

2}, Anna Wang^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry, UNSW Sydney, UNSW Sydney, NSW, Australia.
² Australian Centre for Astrobiology, UNSW Sydney, UNSW Sydney, NSW, Australia.
³ School of Chemistry, UNSW Sydney, UNSW Sydney, NSW, Australia. anna.wang@unsw.edu.au.
⁴ Australian Centre for Astrobiology, UNSW Sydney, UNSW Sydney, NSW, Australia. anna.wang@unsw.edu.au.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 34854031
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1843-1_1

Abstract

Fatty acids readily assemble into bilayer membranes at a pH near their apparent pK_a. Fatty acid vesicles are not only useful for research in the fields of origins of life, soft matter science, biophysics, and drug delivery, but are also cost-effective and easy to manipulate, making them ideal for teaching students about self-assembly and lipid bilayers. Here, we describe simple ways to make giant, unilamellar fatty acid vesicles suitable for microscopy and encapsulation studies.

Keywords: Fatty acids; GUVs; Lipid bilayers; Self-assembly; Unilamellar.

MeSH terms

Biophysics
Fatty Acids
Lipid Bilayers
Microscopy
Unilamellar Liposomes*

Substances

Fatty Acids
Lipid Bilayers
Unilamellar Liposomes