Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 19: Membranes and Vesicles

BP 19.2: Talk

Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 10:15–10:30, H43

Forming vesicles by different methods: the advantages of microfluidic jetting — •Silke Kirchner¹, Alexander Ohlinger¹, Andrey A. Lutich¹, Fernando D. Stefani², and Jochen Feldmann¹ — ¹Photonics and Optoelectronics Group, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germany — ²Departamento de Física Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Phospholipid bilayer vesicles have attracted significant attention during the last decade being a simple model system for cell membranes. The fabrication of vesicles with controlled size distribution, membrane thickness and entire vesicle filling is of particular interest. Among the widely-used methods of vesicle formation are ultrasonification and electroformation. Although these techniques were extensively used and developed they have a number of disadvantages: the low degree of control over and the broad distribution of the vesicles' sizes.

In order to overcome these difficulties the microfluidic jetting technique can be used. The microfluidic jetting method is supposed to increase the degree of control over the vesicles formation process. We will discuss the effect of changing the jet parameters (speed and volume of the jetted liquid) and the membrane properties (combination of different lipids and membrane phase controlled by temperature) on the vesicle fabrication process. Apart from the well-controlled vesicle's size distribution microfluidic jetting offers the possibility to produce vesicles filled with any required solution.