Chemical Analysis of Lipid Boundaries after Consecutive Self-Reproductions of Supported Giant Vesicles

The self-reproduction of lipid boundaries of giant vesicles usually results in the growth of their ‘population’ size. This may be achieved by appropriately supplying ‘mother’ vesicles with membranogenic amphiphiles. The next ‘generation’ of ‘daughter’ vesicles obtained from this ‘feeding’ is inherently difficult to distinguish from the original mothers. Here we report on a method for the consecutive feeding with different fatty acids that each provoke membrane growth and detachment of daughter vesicles from glass microsphere-supported phospholipidic mother vesicles. We discovered that a saturated fatty acid was carried over to the next generation of mothers better than two unsaturated congeners. This has an important bearing on the growth and replication of primitive compartments at the early stages of life. It is also a precise analytical tool.