1 research outputs found
A Quantitative Analytical Method to Test for Salt Effects on Giant Unilamellar Vesicles
Today, free-standing membranes, i.e. liposomes and vesicles, are used in a multitude of
applications, e.g. as drug delivery devices and artificial cell models. Because current
laboratory techniques do not allow handling of large sample sizes, systematic and
quantitative studies on the impact of different effectors, e.g. electrolytes, are limited.
In this work, we evaluated the Hofmeister effects of ten alkali metal halides on giant
unilamellar vesicles made of palmitoyloleoylphosphatidylcholine for a large sample size by
combining the highly parallel water-in-oil emulsion transfer vesicle preparation method with
automatic haemocytometry. We found that this new quantitative screening method is highly
reliable and consistent with previously reported results. Thus, this method may provide a
significant methodological advance in analysis of effects on free-standing model
membranes