Methods to mechanically perturb and characterize GUV-based minimal cell models

Nadab H Wubshet; Allen P Liu

doi:10.1016/j.csbj.2022.12.025

Methods to mechanically perturb and characterize GUV-based minimal cell models

Comput Struct Biotechnol J. 2022 Dec 18:21:550-562. doi: 10.1016/j.csbj.2022.12.025. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Nadab H Wubshet¹, Allen P Liu^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
² Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
³ Cellular and Molecular Biology Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
⁴ Department of Biophysics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.

Abstract

Cells shield organelles and the cytosol via an active boundary predominantly made of phospholipids and membrane proteins, yet allowing communication between the intracellular and extracellular environment. Micron-sized liposome compartments commonly known as giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) are used to model the cell membrane and encapsulate biological materials and processes in a cell-like confinement. In the field of bottom-up synthetic biology, many have utilized GUVs as substrates to study various biological processes such as protein-lipid interactions, cytoskeletal assembly, and dynamics of protein synthesis. Like cells, it is ideal that GUVs are also mechanically durable and able to stay intact when the inner and outer environment changes. As a result, studies have demonstrated approaches to tune the mechanical properties of GUVs by modulating membrane composition and lumenal material property. In this context, there have been many different methods developed to test the mechanical properties of GUVs. In this review, we will survey various perturbation techniques employed to mechanically characterize GUVs.

Keywords: AFM; Acoustic deformation; Electrodeformation; GUV; GUV mechanics; Microfluidics; Micropipette aspiration; Optical stretching.

Publication types

Review

Abstract

Publication types

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