Rapid Spontaneous Assembly of Single Component Liposomes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a spontaneous, barrier-free method for assembling single component liposomes with a natural size determined solely by temperature and lipid type, providing a new platform for studying vesicle self-assembly.

Contribution

It demonstrates a novel spontaneous assembly mechanism for liposomes that is intrinsic and independent of external forces, aligning with Helfrich's theory.

Findings

Liposome size depends only on temperature and lipid type.

The method produces unilamellar liposomes rapidly and spontaneously.

This system offers a new way to study vesicle formation and size selection.

Abstract

We present a mechanism and show two variants of a method where the average diameter of spontaneously (barrier-free) assembled single component unilamellar liposomes is intrinsic, in agreement with Helfrich's theory. It depends only on the temperature and the lipid type, eliminating kinetic effects or external forcing normally observed. This provides the first pure system to study the self-assembly of vesicle forming components, and with a natural length scale it may have an implication for vesicle size selection under pre-biotic conditions.