Measuring Encapsulation Efficiency in Cell-Mimicking Giant Unilamellar Vesicles. 2023

Pashiini Supramaniam, and Zibo Wang, and Stelios Chatzimichail, and Christopher Parperis, and Aditi Kumar, and Vanessa Ho, and Oscar Ces, and Ali Salehi-Reyhani
Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, London W12 0BZ, U.K.

One of the main drivers within the field of bottom-up synthetic biology is to develop artificial chemical machines, perhaps even living systems, that have programmable functionality. Numerous toolkits exist to generate giant unilamellar vesicle-based artificial cells. However, methods able to quantitatively measure their molecular constituents upon formation is an underdeveloped area. We report an artificial cell quality control (AC/QC) protocol using a microfluidic-based single-molecule approach, enabling the absolute quantification of encapsulated biomolecules. While the measured average encapsulation efficiency was 11.4 ± 6.8%, the AC/QC method allowed us to determine encapsulation efficiencies per vesicle, which varied significantly from 2.4 to 41%. We show that it is possible to achieve a desired concentration of biomolecule within each vesicle by commensurate compensation of its concentration in the seed emulsion. However, the variability in encapsulation efficiency suggests caution is necessary when using such vesicles as simplified biological models or standards.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D004655 Emulsions Colloids formed by the combination of two immiscible liquids such as oil and water. Lipid-in-water emulsions are usually liquid, like milk or lotion. Water-in-lipid emulsions tend to be creams. The formation of emulsions may be aided by amphiphatic molecules that surround one component of the system to form MICELLES. Emulsion
D044085 Microfluidics The study of fluid channels and chambers of tiny dimensions of tens to hundreds of micrometers and volumes of nanoliters or picoliters. This is of interest in biological MICROCIRCULATION and used in MICROCHEMISTRY and INVESTIGATIVE TECHNIQUES. Microfluidic
D053835 Unilamellar Liposomes Single membrane vesicles, generally made of PHOSPHOLIPIDS. Monolayer Liposomes,Monolayer Vesicles,Unilamellar Vesicles,Liposomes, Monolayer,Liposomes, Unilamellar,Vesicles, Monolayer,Vesicles, Unilamellar
D058045 Artificial Cells Chemically synthesized structures which functionally resemble natural cells. Artificial Cell,Artificial Organelles,Protocells,Synthetic Cells,Synthetic Organelles,Artificial Organelle,Cell, Artificial,Cell, Synthetic,Cells, Artificial,Cells, Synthetic,Organelle, Artificial,Organelle, Synthetic,Organelles, Artificial,Organelles, Synthetic,Protocell,Synthetic Cell,Synthetic Organelle
D058615 Synthetic Biology A field of biological research combining engineering in the formulation, design, and building (synthesis) of novel biological structures, functions, and systems. Biologies, Synthetic,Biology, Synthetic,Synthetic Biologies

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