Patterning and Controlled Adhesion of Cells and Lipid Nanotube Vesicle Networks by Microfabricated Substrates

Licentiate thesis, 2005

Networks of nanotubes and vesicles offer a platform for construction of nanofluidic devices operating on single molecule and particle level. Here one has the opportunity to study chemistry in confined biomimetic compartments in an environment as close to nature as possible without going in-vivo. The development of lipid vesicle networks and the techniques involved has been an ongoing process for over 10 years. Over the years we’ve expanded our abilities to observe, handle, and predict nanotube vesicle networks. Understanding of the physical properties of these systems is imperative to the explanation of the observed behavior in the conducted experiments. But we’re quickly approaching the limit where we also require knowledge of how these systems act and react to their environment. If we want to use these systems for anything more than just as cool toy we need to get a grip on the hard physical aspects of how we choose to interact with these systems. The research in highly organized lipid vesicle networks is going into a regime where control of surface properties becomes a fundamental interest. Without proper attention to the substrate we will never achieve our scientific goals, the use of these systems in a user friendly, research or medical industry environment, where they can be used in the research of biological membrane behavior and cellular processes for the development of medical drugs. The scientific field of lipid nanotube vesicle networks has taken several major steps toward a technique that is of use for the general scientific community. Among these are the cell patterning covered in paper I, concerning electroporation of cells, the pipette writing principle described in paper II, and in paper III, the expansion of vesicle networks to the third dimension.