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iGUVs: Preparing Giant Unilamellar Vesicles with a Smartphone and Lipids Easily Extracted from Chicken Eggs

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Download Hi-Res ImageDownload to MS-PowerPointCite This:J. Chem. Educ. 2017, 94, 5, 644-649
    Laboratory Experiment

    iGUVs: Preparing Giant Unilamellar Vesicles with a Smartphone and Lipids Easily Extracted from Chicken Eggs
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    † Departamento de Química Física I, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Avenida Complutense s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain
    ‡ Instituto de Investigación Hospital Doce de Octubre (i+12), Avenida de Córdoba s/n, 28041 Madrid, Spain
    § Institut Curie, UMR 9187 CNRS, INSERM U1196, Univ Paris-Sud - Université Paris-Saclay, 91405 Orsay, France
    ∥ UMR 8612 CNRS, Univ Paris-Sud - Université Paris-Saclay, 5 Rue Jean-Baptiste Clément, 92290 Châtenay-Malabry, France
    *E-mail: [email protected]
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    Journal of Chemical Education

    Cite this: J. Chem. Educ. 2017, 94, 5, 644–649
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    https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.6b00951
    Published April 4, 2017
    Copyright © 2017 The American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
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    Abstract

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    Since the first report of electroformed micrometer-sized liposomes in the 1980s, giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) have generated a lot of interest in the biophysical and biochemical communities. However, their penetration rate in high school or at the undergraduate level is still limited because of the requirement of specialized materials for their fabrication. The main objective of this article is to translate the manufacture of these interesting microsystems from highly specialized research laboratories to general chemistry or biology laboratories with the help of everyday objects. Vesicles are made of lipids, which can easily be extracted from chicken eggs. Once obtained, the lipids can be reassembled to form giant vesicular structures in a sugar/aqueous medium by using a do-it-yourself electroformation device. For that, the homemade electroformation chamber is plugged into the audio output of a smartphone or a tablet, which generates audio signals with variable amplitude and frequency. These GUVs prepared with a smart device (iGUVs) are then resuspended into a salt solution for their visualization under a simple microscope. iGUVs bring the opportunity to teachers to stimulate scientific discussion from a wide variety of scientific disciplines such as colloidal chemistry, biophysical chemistry, statistics and cell biology.

    Copyright © 2017 The American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

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    This article is cited by 9 publications.

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    Journal of Chemical Education

    Cite this: J. Chem. Educ. 2017, 94, 5, 644–649
    Click to copy citationCitation copied!
    https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.6b00951
    Published April 4, 2017
    Copyright © 2017 The American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
    Request reuse permissions

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