Postsynthetic Photocontrol of Giant Liposomes via Fusion-Based Photolipid Doping

We report on photolipid doping of giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) via vesicle fusion with small unilamellar photolipid vesicles (pSUVs), which enables retroactive optical control of the membrane properties. We observe that vesicle fusion is light-dependent, if the phospholipids are neutral. Charge-mediated fusion involving anionic and cationic lipid molecules augments the overall fusion performance and doping efficiency, even in the absence of light exposure. Using phosphatidylcholine analogs with one or two azobenzene photoswitches (azo–PC and dazo-PC) affects domain formation, bending stiffness, and shape of the resulting vesicles in response to irradiation. Moreover, we show that optical membrane control can be extended to long wavelengths using red-absorbing photolipids (red–azo–PC). Combined, our findings present an attractive and practical method for the precise delivery of photolipids, which offers new prospects for the optical control of membrane function.