Locomotion of micromotors due to liposome disintegration

Mazur, Frederico, Fernández-Medina, Marina, Gal, Noga, Hovorka, Ondrej, Chandrawati, Rona and Städler, Brigitte (2020) Locomotion of micromotors due to liposome disintegration. Langmuir, 36 (25), 7056–7065. (doi:10.1021/acs.langmuir.9b03509).

Abstract

Synthetic micromotors are evaluated extensively in a range of biomedical, microscale transport, and environmental applications. Fundamental insight into micromotors that exhibit locomotion due to triggered disintegration of their associated liposomes is provided. Directed self-propulsion is observed when the lipid vesicles are solubilized using Triton X-100 (TX) and bile at sufficiently high concentrations. Directional motion, initiated by a propagating TX or bile gradient, is found when using a sufficiently high concentration of solubilization agents. On the other hand, a low bile concentration results in short-term reverse directional motion. The experimental and theoretical considerations offer valid fundamental understanding to complement the list of explored locomotion mechanisms for micromotors.

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Contributors

Author: Ondrej Hovorka

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