Engineering motile aqueous phase-separated droplets
via liposome stabilisation
via liposome stabilisation
File(s)
Preprint version
Author(s)
Type
Working Paper
Abstract
There are increasing efforts to engineer functional compartments that mimic aspects of cellular behaviour in a drive to construct an artificial cell from the bottom-up. One behaviour that is receiving particular attention is motility, due to its biotechnological potential and the fact that movement of discrete cells is a ubiquitous feature of living systems. Many existing platforms make use of the Marangoni effect to achieve motion in water/oil (w/o) droplet systems. However, most of these systems are unsuitable for biological applications due to issues with biocompatibility caused by the presence of oil phases. Here we report a biocompatible all aqueous (w/w) PEG/dextran Pickering-like emulsion system consisting of liposome-stabilized cell-sized droplets, where the stability can be easily tuned by adjusting liposome composition and concentration. We demonstrate that the compartments are capable of negative chemotaxis: if water is introduced into the emulsion system, these droplets can respond through directional motion away from PEG in the continuous phase and down to the polymer gradient with a velocity change proportional to the rearrangement of liposome stabilisers in the PEG/dextran interface. The biocompatibility, motility and partitioning abilities of this novel droplet system offers new directions to pursue research in motion-related biological processes.
Date Issued
2020-07-10
Citation
2020
Publisher
Research Square
Copyright Statement
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
License URL
Identifier
10.21203/rs.3.rs-37639/v1
Subjects
motile aqueous phase-separated droplets
liposome stabilization
arti cial cell construction
motility
Publication Status
Published