Hydrodynamic Filtration in Microfluidic Channels as Size-Selection Process for Giant Unilamellar Vesicles

We have developed hydrodynamic filtration method in microfluidic device for the efficient size-selection of polydisperse lipid vesicles for giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs), in which vesicles were formed by electroformation method. Combining pinched flow channel design before hydrodynamic filtration, GUVs were flowed and guided to filtration channels, in which small lipid vesicles were further filtered and GUV were remained in main flow channels. For increasing the selectivity of GUV in outlets, length of slit section, or relative flow rate were controlled and drain channels were introduced for avoiding back flow. At higher flow rate in a pinched flow, the fraction of recovered GUVs (>10 microm) were increased, in which most of small vesicles were filtered.