Microfluidic hydrodynamic focusing based synthesis of POPC liposomes for model biological systems

Lipid vesicles have received significant attention in areas ranging from pharmaceutical and biomedical engineering to novel materials and nanotechnology. Microfluidic-based synthesis of liposomes offers a number of advantages over the more traditional synthesis methods such as extrusion and sonication. One such microfluidic approach is microfluidic hydrodynamic focusing (MHF), which has been used to synthesize nanoparticles and vesicles of various lipids. We show here that this method can be utilized in synthesis of 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC) vesicles with controllable size. Since POPC is among the primary constituents of cellular membranes, this work is of direct applicability to modelling of biological systems and development of nano-containers with higher biologic compatibility for pharmaceutical and medical applications. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.