Description
Synthetic cells are bioengineers’ route to understand the molecular blueprint of life. We want to find the spatiotemporal combination of biomolecules that will divide a cell-like giant-unilamellar vesicle (GUV) and sustain biochemical homeostasis post-division. Synthesizing GUVs typically results in a broad range of GUV sizes, e.g. 1-100 μm. However, a consistent GUV size is crucial for gaining control and understanding of the synergistic integration of biomolecules. We therefore set out to make monodisperse GUVs of 1-5 μm, as foundation
for synthetic cells. We developed an analysis pipeline to determine the GUV size from its volume, using confocal microscope z-stack series. We show that the maximum size of GUVs in the population can be chosen by the height of a microfluidic chip. In addition, a microfluidic deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) bumping array can sort GUVs at a theoretical and an apparent cutoff size. Finally, we show that proteoGUVs biochemical behaviour is dependent on GUV size. Future work includes the microfluidic integration of DLD-array with
chip height for consistent synthetic cell experiments.
1- Groningen Biomolecular Sciences & Biotechnology Institute, University of Groningen, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands
2- Department of Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry,82152 Martinsried, Germany
3- Department of Bionanoscience, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience Delft, Delft University of Technology, 2629 HZ Delft, The Netherlands