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Updated: May 29, 2026

Single-Molecule Diffusion and Assembly on Polymer-Crowded Lipid Membranes
Published on: July 19, 2022
Spontaneous formation of a vesicle multilayer on top of an exponentially growing polyelectrolyte multilayer mediated
Norma Graf1, Elsa Thomasson, Alexander Tanno
1Laboratory of Biosensors and Bioelectronics, Institute for Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
Abstract:
We observed the spontaneous formation of vesicle-multilayers on top of a polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM). By varying the thickness of underlying PEM (uPEM) it was possible to tailor the amount of adsorbing liposomes. Thereby, the loading capacity could be increased up to 17 times with respect to a monolayer of vesicles for an uPEM of 50.5 bilayers. We, furthermore, proved that the formation of the vesicle multilayer is due to the ability of poly-L-lysine to diffuse within the uPEM. This method could be interesting for applications in sensors and drug delivery systems where the increase in loading capacity is highly desired.
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