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Optical stretching of giant unilamellar vesicles with an integrated dual-beam optical trap
Mehmet E Solmaz1, Roshni Biswas, Shalene Sankhagowit
1Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
Biomedical Optics Express
|October 20, 2012
Abstract:
We have integrated a dual-beam optical trap into a microfluidic platform and used it to study membrane mechanics in giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs). We demonstrate the trapping and stretching of GUVs and characterize the membrane response to a step stress. We then measure area strain as a function of applied stress to extract the bending modulus of the lipid bilayer in the low-tension regime.
