Derganc Jure, Zemljič-Jokhadar Špela, Majaron Boris, Kokot Gašper
Institute of Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana Ljubljana Slovenia
Jožef Stefan Institute Ljubljana Slovenia.
RSC Adv. 2023 Aug 21;13(35):24830-24834. doi: 10.1039/d3ra03988a. eCollection 2023 Aug 11.
Controlled poration of lipid membranes is crucial for numerous biomimetic applications such as targeted drug delivery. Although several chemical and physical mechanisms have been proposed for the poration of synthetic membranes, achieving good temporal and spatial control remains a challenge. In this study, we introduce a novel method for membrane poration that utilizes the mechanical shockwave generated by the photo-acoustic effect, which occurs when an optically opaque microparticle is illuminated by a near-infrared laser of optical tweezers. We show that the shockwave effectively porates membranes of giant unilamellar vesicles in close proximity to the microparticle without damaging nearby cells, which is a desirable outcome for potential targeted drug delivery. The poration effect is nonspecific and operates on both liquid and gel phase membranes. Since the photo-acoustic effect can be triggered by standard optical tweezers, this method holds broad applicability in various experimental settings within the field of soft matter research.
脂质膜的可控穿孔对于众多仿生应用（如靶向药物递送）至关重要。尽管已经提出了几种用于合成膜穿孔的化学和物理机制，但实现良好的时空控制仍然是一个挑战。在本研究中，我们引入了一种用于膜穿孔的新方法，该方法利用光声效应产生的机械冲击波，当光学镊子的近红外激光照射光学不透明微粒时会发生光声效应。我们表明，冲击波能有效地使紧邻微粒的巨型单层囊泡的膜穿孔，而不会损伤附近的细胞，这对于潜在的靶向药物递送来说是一个理想的结果。穿孔效应是非特异性的，对液相和凝胶相膜均起作用。由于光声效应可由标准光学镊子触发，因此该方法在软物质研究领域的各种实验环境中具有广泛的适用性。
