Chemical Communication between Giant Vesicles and Gated Nanoparticles for Strip-Based Sensing

Inspired by nature, the development of artificial micro/nanosystems capable of communicating has become an emergent topic in nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and related areas. However, the demonstration of actual applications still has to come. Here, we demonstrate how chemical communication between micro- and nanoparticles can be used for the design of sensing systems. To realize this, we synergistically combine two different types of particles: i.e., giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) as senders and gated mesoporous nanoparticles as receivers. The use of engineered GUVs allows the detection of analytes based on responsive membranes, while the use of gated nanoparticles allows a straightforward application on test strips with smartphone-based detection. In addition, we demonstrate that the combined communication system exhibits signal amplification and its application in real samples employing the bacterial toxin α-hemolysin as target analyte. Altogether, our report presents a new route for engineering sensing systems based on the combination of communicative micro/nanoparticles.