Abstract
Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) or giant liposomes have been used as a cell-size bioreactor to recapitulate the physical/chemical characteristics of biological cells. However, conventional preparation methods for GUVs lack precise control of the size of GUVs. Recently, several groups developed a preparation method for monodisperse GUVs using microfluidics, in which water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) droplets with a thin oil layer were generated and transformed into GUVs. However, the formation of the thin oil shell requires precise control of flow rates, which is often difficult and unstable. In this study, we investigated the design of a two-step flow-focusing microfluidic channel to generate stable W/O/W droplets, from which a significant portion of the oil layer was spontaneously removed by the fluidic shear. As a result, the oil layer of the W/O/W droplets was thinned down, which could promote spontaneous dewetting of the oil layer to form a lipid bilayer.
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