Microfluidic technologies for the synthesis and manipulation of biomimetic membranous nano-assemblies
Microfluidics has been proposed as an attractive alternative to conventional bulk methods used in the generation of self-assembled biomimetic structures, particularly where there is a desire for more scalable production. The approach also allows for greater control over the self-assembly process, an...
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| Published in | Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP Vol. 23; no. 6; pp. 3693 - 376 |
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| Main Authors | , , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
England
Royal Society of Chemistry
19.02.2021
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| Subjects | |
| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Microfluidics has been proposed as an attractive alternative to conventional bulk methods used in the generation of self-assembled biomimetic structures, particularly where there is a desire for more scalable production. The approach also allows for greater control over the self-assembly process, and parameters such as particle architecture, size, and composition can be finely tuned. Microfluidic techniques used in the generation of microscale assemblies (giant vesicles and higher-order multi-compartment assemblies) are fairly well established. These tend to rely on microdroplet templation, and the resulting structures have found use as comparmentalised motifs in artificial cells. Challenges in generating sub-micron droplets have meant that reconfiguring this approach to form nano-scale structures is not straightforward. This is beginning to change however, and recent technological advances have instigated the manufacture and manipulation of an increasingly diverse repertoire of biomimetic nano-assemblies, including liposomes, polymersomes, hybrid particles, multi-lamellar structures, cubosomes, hexosomes, nanodiscs, and virus-like particles. The following review will discuss these higher-order self-assembled nanostructures, including their biochemical and industrial applications, and techniques used in their production and analysis. We suggest ways in which existing technologies could be repurposed for the enhanced design, manufacture, and exploitation of these structures and discuss potential challenges and future research directions. By compiling recent advances in this area, it is hoped we will inspire future efforts toward establishing scalable microfluidic platforms for the generation of biomimetic nanoparticles of enhanced architectural and functional complexity.
A mini-review of microfluidic technologies for the generation and manipulation of biomimetic nano-assemblies, including perspectives for future research directions. |
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| Bibliography: | Yuval Elani is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Lecturer at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. He co-Founded the fabriCELL centre for artificial cell research and is co-Director of the Membrane Biophysics Platform. Yuval was born in South Africa and also lived in Israel and the UK. His undergraduate training was at Cambridge, which was followed by a PhD and a series of independent fellowships at Imperial. His interests are in the development of technologies for engineering artificial cells for clinical and industrial applications. He has expertise in bottom-up synthetic biology, microfluidics and membrane chemical biology. John Seddon is Professor of Chemical Physics at Imperial College London. His research is focused on soft matter self-assembly, liquid crystals, and lipid model membranes. He is Chair of the RSC Faraday Standing Committee on Conferences, and is Secretary of the European Biophysical Societies' Association. Colin is in the second year of his PhD at Imperial College London where, under the supervision of Prof. John Seddon and Dr Yuval Elani, he is using microfluidics to generate higher-order cell mimetic architectures. Before joining Imperial, he studied medicinal chemistry in Ireland, with a brief stint at GlaxoSmithKline, followed by three years researching microfluidics and polymer chemistry in Cambridge. |
| ISSN: | 1463-9076 1463-9084 |
| DOI: | 10.1039/d0cp06226j |