Biomolecular-motor-based autonomous delivery of lipid vesicles as nano- or microscale reactors on a chip

We aimed to create an autonomous on-chip system that performs targeted delivery of lipid vesicles (liposomes) as nano- or microscale reactors using machinery from biological systems. Reactor-liposomes would be ideal model cargoes to realize biomolecular-motor-based biochemical analysis chips; however, there are no existing systems that enable targeted delivery of cargo-liposomes in an autonomous manner. By exploiting biomolecular-motor-based motility and DNA hybridization, we demonstrate that single-stranded DNA (ssDNA)-labeled microtubules (MTs), gliding on kinesin-coated surfaces, acted as cargo transporters and that ssDNA-labeled cargo-liposomes were loaded/unloaded onto/from gliding MTs without bursting at loading reservoirs/micropatterned unloading sites specified by DNA base sequences. Our results contribute to the development of an alternative strategy to pressure-driven or electrokinetic flow-based microfluidic devices.