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Sequential gentle hydration increases encapsulation in model protocells

Small, spherical vesicles are a widely used chassis for the formation of model protocells and investigating the beginning of compartmentalized evolution. Various methods exist for their preparation, with one of the most common approaches being gentle hydration, where thin layers of lipids are hydrat...

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Autores principales: Gehlbach, Emma M., Robinson, Abbey O., Engelhart, Aaron E., Adamala, Katarzyna P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10592796/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37873423
http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.15.562404
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author Gehlbach, Emma M.
Robinson, Abbey O.
Engelhart, Aaron E.
Adamala, Katarzyna P.
author_facet Gehlbach, Emma M.
Robinson, Abbey O.
Engelhart, Aaron E.
Adamala, Katarzyna P.
author_sort Gehlbach, Emma M.
collection PubMed
description Small, spherical vesicles are a widely used chassis for the formation of model protocells and investigating the beginning of compartmentalized evolution. Various methods exist for their preparation, with one of the most common approaches being gentle hydration, where thin layers of lipids are hydrated with aqueous solutions and gently agitated to form vesicles. An important benefit to gentle hydration is that the method produces vesicles without introducing any organic contaminants, such as mineral oil, into the lipid bilayer. However, compared to other methods of liposome formation, gentle hydration is much less efficient at encapsulating aqueous cargo. Improving the encapsulation efficiency of gentle hydration would be of broad use for medicine, biotechnology, and protocell research. Here, we describe a method of sequentially hydrating lipid thin films to increase encapsulation efficiency. We demonstrate that sequential gentle hydration significantly improves encapsulation of water-soluble cargo compared to the traditional method, and that this improved efficiency is dependent on buffer composition. Similarly, we also demonstrate how this method can be used to increase concentrations of oleic acid, a fatty acid commonly used in origins of life research, to improve the formation of vesicles in aqueous buffer.
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spelling pubmed-105927962023-10-24 Sequential gentle hydration increases encapsulation in model protocells Gehlbach, Emma M. Robinson, Abbey O. Engelhart, Aaron E. Adamala, Katarzyna P. bioRxiv Article Small, spherical vesicles are a widely used chassis for the formation of model protocells and investigating the beginning of compartmentalized evolution. Various methods exist for their preparation, with one of the most common approaches being gentle hydration, where thin layers of lipids are hydrated with aqueous solutions and gently agitated to form vesicles. An important benefit to gentle hydration is that the method produces vesicles without introducing any organic contaminants, such as mineral oil, into the lipid bilayer. However, compared to other methods of liposome formation, gentle hydration is much less efficient at encapsulating aqueous cargo. Improving the encapsulation efficiency of gentle hydration would be of broad use for medicine, biotechnology, and protocell research. Here, we describe a method of sequentially hydrating lipid thin films to increase encapsulation efficiency. We demonstrate that sequential gentle hydration significantly improves encapsulation of water-soluble cargo compared to the traditional method, and that this improved efficiency is dependent on buffer composition. Similarly, we also demonstrate how this method can be used to increase concentrations of oleic acid, a fatty acid commonly used in origins of life research, to improve the formation of vesicles in aqueous buffer. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 2023-10-15 /pmc/articles/PMC10592796/ /pubmed/37873423 http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.15.562404 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) , which allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
spellingShingle Article
Gehlbach, Emma M.
Robinson, Abbey O.
Engelhart, Aaron E.
Adamala, Katarzyna P.
Sequential gentle hydration increases encapsulation in model protocells
title Sequential gentle hydration increases encapsulation in model protocells
title_full Sequential gentle hydration increases encapsulation in model protocells
title_fullStr Sequential gentle hydration increases encapsulation in model protocells
title_full_unstemmed Sequential gentle hydration increases encapsulation in model protocells
title_short Sequential gentle hydration increases encapsulation in model protocells
title_sort sequential gentle hydration increases encapsulation in model protocells
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10592796/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37873423
http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.15.562404
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