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Inkjet formation of unilamellar lipid vesicles for cell-like encapsulation

2009; Royal Society of Chemistry; Volume: 9; Issue: 14 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1039/b904984c

1473-0197

Jeanne C. Stachowiak, David Richmond, Thomas H. Li, Françoise Brochard‐Wyart, Daniel A. Fletcher,

3D Printing in Biomedical Research

Encapsulation of macromolecules within lipid vesicles has the potential to drive biological discovery and enable development of novel, cell-like therapeutics and sensors. However, rapid and reliable production of large numbers of unilamellar vesicles loaded with unrestricted and precisely-controlled contents requires new technologies that overcome size, uniformity, and throughput limitations of existing approaches. Here we present a high-throughput microfluidic method for vesicle formation and encapsulation using an inkjet printer at rates up to 200 Hz. We show how multiple high-frequency pulses of the inkjet's piezoelectric actuator create a microfluidic jet that deforms a bilayer lipid membrane, controlling formation of individual vesicles. Variations in pulse number, pulse voltage, and solution viscosity are used to control the vesicle size. As a first step toward cell-like reconstitution using this method, we encapsulate the cytoskeletal protein actin and use co-encapsulated microspheres to track its polymerization into a densely entangled cytoskeletal network upon vesicle formation.