Skip to main content
. 2021 Nov 20;120(24):5454–5465. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2021.11.2884

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Trapping iodixanol-containing GUVs for single-molecule manipulation. (A) Molecular formula of iodixanol. (B) Bright-field images of optically trapped GUVs containing 0.5 M sucrose only, and 30% or 55% iodixanol. (C) Schematic diagram of the experimental setup to pull a single DNA hairpin attached to the optical trapped GUV. (D) Force-extension curves (FECs) obtained by pulling the DNA hairpin attached to the MCB or the same GUV containing 55% iodixanol but with different membrane tensions in the buffers containing different concentrations of KCl ([KCl]). The three FECs on the left well overlap the FEC corresponding to 250 mM KCl but are successively shifted to the left for clarity. Red and black arrows indicate reversible unfolding/refolding transition of the DNA hairpin and abrupt formation of membrane tethers, respectively. The inset shows the fluorescence image of a membrane tether pulled out of the optically trapped GUV. The [KCl]-dependent results were repeatable and observed with more than eight GUVs from different batches of GUV preparations.