Since reports of their assembly from purified phospholipids more than half a century ago, single-walled phospholipid vesicles larger than 1 micrometer in diameter also called giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) have been objects of fascination due to their resemblance to minimal biological cells. Nevertheless, basic information such as the influence of fabrication technique and conditions of growth on the yields and sizes of GUVs is lacking. I will describe a quantitative framework that we developed to systematically measure the ‘fractional yields’ and sizes of GUVs produced through generic thin film hydration techniques. The fractional yield — the molar yield of lipids harvested as GUVs divided by the molar amount of lipids initially deposited on the substrate — allows fair inter- and intra-technique comparisons. Comparison of the fractional yield of giant vesicles obtained from gentle hydration, electroformation, gel-assisted hydration, and paper-abetted lipid hydration in aqueous solutions (PAPYRUS) showed that PAPYRUS on nanocellulose papers produces superior fractional yields of GUVs in both low salt and high salt solutions. Using artificial blood as a prototypical manufacturing challenge to concretize the requisite numbers and sizes of GUVs, we find that PAPYRUS on nanocellulose paper is several orders of magnitude cheaper than other extant techniques for growing GUVs. We also use the measured differences in fractional yield to obtain insights on the process of formation of GUVs for the different techniques.

Contiguous nanostructured cellulose substrates produce quantitively high yields of giant vesicles in low and high salt solutions

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.