title: Population study of sizes and components of self-reproducing giant multilamellar vesicles.
abstract: Population analysis of a system of self-reproducing giant multilamellar vesicles (GMVs) was carried out by means of flow cytometry. The multidimensional distribution of forward light scattering (FS), side light scattering (SS), and fluorescence (FL) intensities originating from each GMV provided information about changes in a population composed of 104 vesicles. FS-FL dot plots indicated that, after the addition of the membrane precursor, the size distribution of the newly generated vesicles was nearly the same as that of the original, but the catalyst content was reduced. This result can be interpreted as evidence for the occurrence of the self-reproduction of GMVs. Moreover, the new GMVs recovered the amount of catalyst to the initial value, keeping their size distribution constant, when a solution of the catalyst was added to the new GMVs. These results are the first experimental evidence for a novel phenomenon on GMV size distribution during their self-reproducing cycle.
authors.affiliation: Department of Basic Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan.
authors.forename: Taro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Toyota
authors.forename: Katsuto
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takakura
authors.forename: Yoshiyuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kageyama
authors.forename: Kensuke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kurihara
authors.forename: Naoto
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Maru
authors.forename: Kiyoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ohnuma
authors.forename: Kunihiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kaneko
authors.forename: Tadashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sugawara
mesh_terms: D002384:Catalysis; D005434:Flow Cytometry / Q000379:methods*; D008081:Liposomes / Q000737:chemistry*; D010316:Particle Size; D016008:Statistical Distributions
chemical_list: D008081:Liposomes