Abstract
A giant unilamellar vesicle (GUV), with similar properties to cellular membrane, has been widely studied. Electroformation with its simplicity and accessibility has become the most common method for GUV production. In this work, GUV electroformation in devices with traditional 3D and new 2D electrode structures were studied with respect to the applied electric field. An optimal frequency (10 kHz in the 3D and 1 kHz in the 2D systems) was found in each system. A positive correlation was found between GUV formation and applied voltage in the 3D electrode system from 1 to 10 V. In the 2D electrode system, the yield of the generated GUV increased first but decreased later as voltage increased. These phenomena were further confirmed by numerically calculating the load that the lipid film experienced from the generated electroosmotic flow (EOF). The discrepancy between the experimental and numerical results of the 3D electrode system may be because the parameters that were adopted in the simulations are quite different from those of the lipid film in experiments. The lipid film was not involved in the simulation of the 2D system, and the numerical results matched well with the experiments.
Highlights
Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs), a particular type of lipid vesicles, have been widely accepted as cellular membrane models because of their similar properties [1]
An optimal frequency was found in each system (10 kHz in 3D system and 1 kHz in 2D system) under which a good yield and monodispersity of the generated vesicles can be achieved
This was not consistent with those reported results that low frequency was more suitable for GUV electroformation
Summary
Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs), a particular type of lipid vesicles, have been widely accepted as cellular membrane models because of their similar properties [1]. Many other methods were realized that introduced some external energy sources to accelerate the formation process and improve the formation efficiency significantly with the help of a faster convective flow. This kind of method included reverse evaporation [2], sonication [3,4], Micromachines 2017, 8, 24; doi:10.3390/mi8010024 www.mdpi.com/journal/micromachines. Micromachines 2017, 8, 24 electroformation [5], extrusion, etc. Electroformation, since first described by Angelova and Dimitrov in 1986, became the most common method for GUV production for its simplicity and accessibility [6]
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