Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• van Swaay, Dirk
• Tang, T.-Y. Dora
• Mann, Stephen
• de Mello, Andrew

Titel

Microfluidic Formation of Membrane-Free Aqueous Coacervate Droplets in Water

Ist Teil von

• Angewandte Chemie (International ed.), 2015-07, Vol.54 (29), p.8398-8401

Auflage

International ed. in English

Ort / Verlag

Weinheim: WILEY-VCH Verlag

Erscheinungsjahr

2015

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• We report on the formation of coacervate droplets from poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) with either adenosine triphosphate or carboxymethyl‐dextran using a microfluidic flow‐focusing system. The formed droplets exhibit improved stability and narrower size distributions for both coacervate compositions when compared to the conventional vortex dispersion techniques. We also demonstrate the use of two parallel flow‐focusing channels for the simultaneous formation and co‐location of two distinct populations of coacervate droplets containing different DNA oligonucleotides, and that the populations can coexist in close proximity up to 48 h without detectable exchange of genetic information. Our results show that the observed improvements in droplet stability and size distribution may be scaled with ease. In addition, the ability to encapsulate different materials into coacervate droplets using a microfluidic channel structure allows for their use as cell‐mimicking compartments. Stable dispersions of polymer/nucleotide or polymer/polysaccharide coacervate droplets with a narrow size distribution are prepared in water using microfluidic flow focusing. Two distinct populations of co‐located coacervate droplets containing different DNA oligonucleotides are produced simultaneously, and shown to coexist in close proximity without exchange of genetic information for over six days.