Biomimetic Nanometer-Size All-Liquid Channels.

Abstract

A wealth of micro/nanoscale fluidic channels between/in cells maintain essential mass transfer processes, ensuring the proper functioning of living organisms. Nevertheless, the artificial construction and simulation of such all-liquid channels remain, yet, a formidable challenge, due to the inherent Plateau-Rayleigh instability. Here, we present a new "quasistatic stretching" approach applied to a liquid bridge in another immiscible liquid, where the liquid/liquid interfaces were manipulated by interfacial nanoparticle-polymer coassemblies. These coassemblies, with characteristic of reconfigurable, tunable jammed networks, enable stepwise stretching the channel in liquid bridge size downward. We establish a selection rule of component inputs that yield ultrafine liquid channels during the stretching process. The superior flexibility and moderate entanglement or cross-linking of polymer chains within the nanoparticle-polymer microstructures endow the liquid bridge with plastic deformability, allowing the channel forward to hundred nanometer size, reducing by two-orders-of-magnitude on state-of-the-art technology and approaching the size range of biomimetic counterparts. Furthermore, biomimetic functions-intercellular mitochondrial rescue and compartmentalized immunotherapy-were proved using the organism tubular analog-liquid bridge based channels, via controlling the flowrate of the mass transfer in the channels. These simulations may offer a potential framework for biophysically understanding cellular processes mediated by tubular structures.