Toxicity of Nanoparticles and their Interaction with Lipid Vesicles in Micro-Fluidic Device

The rising number of applications of nanoparticles (NPs) in commercial and consumer product industry, biological sciences and medical diagnostics have drawn attention on the hazards NPs pose to human health and environment. However, the biomolecular mechanisms of NPs’ toxicity have not been fully elucidated due to the complication of diverse properties of nanoparticles and composition of cells.


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The cell membrane is a thin layer of phospholipids-cholesterol mixture which contain liquid ordered phase (Lo), liquid disordered phase (Ld) as well as gel phases (s). Different type of membrane proteins was believed to partition into special phases. Those proteins play a very important role in many cell membrane functions, such as mediating endocytosis, sorting in polarized epithelial cells, virus budding, and immune receptor signaling. NPs with different properties (i.e., size, charge) are proposed to show preferential partition into the membrane phases, which physically or chemically interfere with the protein associated process and therefore will impair cell’s normal functionalities.

Both model membrane and cell plasma membrane are to be used as the study objectives targeted by the functionalized NPs. The as produced giant unilamellar vesicles (liposome) will be microfluidically arrayed intact on a surface for in-situ fluorescence interrogation and following interaction with nanoparticles. The aim of this project is to establish a relationship between the interactions of functionalized NPs with functional microdomains such as rafts on a model cell membrane, and to determine how the surface properties of NPs will affect such relationships. The results can help us to better understand the cytotoxicity of NPs in-vitro.