Huang Yuting
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Department of Applied Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Emerg Top Life Sci. 2022 Dec 22;6(6):609-617. doi: 10.1042/ETLS20220055.
Asymmetric unilamellar vesicles are aqueous bodies surrounded by two dissimilar leaflets made from lipids, polymers, or both. They are great models for cell membranes and attractive vehicles in potential biomedicine applications. Despite their promise, asymmetric unilamellar vesicles are not widely studied or adopted in applications. This is largely due to the complexity in generating asymmetric membranes. Recent technical advances in microfluidics have opened doors to high throughput fabrication of asymmetric unilamellar vesicles. In this review, we focus on microfluidic methods for generating asymmetric lipid vesicles, with two dissimilar lipid leaflets, and asymmetric lipid-polymer vesicles, with one lipid leaflet and one polymer leaflet. We also review a few standard non-microfluidic methods for generating asymmetric vesicles. We hope to highlight the improved capability in obtaining asymmetric vesicles through a variety of methods and encourage the wider scientific community to adopt some of these for their own work.
不对称单层囊泡是由脂质、聚合物或两者制成的两个不同小叶包围的水性体。它们是细胞膜的理想模型，也是潜在生物医学应用中有吸引力的载体。尽管它们有前景，但不对称单层囊泡在应用中并未得到广泛研究或采用。这主要是由于生成不对称膜的复杂性。微流体技术的最新进展为高通量制备不对称单层囊泡打开了大门。在这篇综述中，我们专注于用于生成具有两个不同脂质小叶的不对称脂质囊泡以及具有一个脂质小叶和一个聚合物小叶的不对称脂质-聚合物囊泡的微流体方法。我们还综述了一些用于生成不对称囊泡的标准非微流体方法。我们希望强调通过各种方法获得不对称囊泡的改进能力，并鼓励更广泛的科学界在自己的工作中采用其中一些方法。
