Fisher Team update: Nanomembranes 101
Josh has just started teaching us how to play with these; some early findings:
– So far, standard centrifugation results mostly on the caking of lipids that clogs the membranes.
– Use of the pressure cell has shown some promise, we have passed 120nm lipid-nps through 400nm pores @10PSI. The result? 70nm particles…
– Reverse centrifugation has given us mixed results: in one instance the membranes seemed to rupture, and in another one, they did not do much, except for seemingly reducing the heterogeneity of size measurements (see below).
In conclusion: we have just started. Things we have learned are that we need to have a better understanding of the size (and sizing) of the particles we use, and that regular centrifugation at relatively high lipid concentrations does not work. On the other hand, both the pressure cell method and reverse centrifugation might work once we work out the kinks.
