Data from: Mechanical performance of hybrid polymer-lipid vesicles with leaflet asymmetry engineered using microfluidics

Lipid vesicles consist of aqueous cores surrounded by a bilayer of
phospholipids. Hybrid polymer–lipid vesicles incorporate both polymers and
lipids, offering promising properties for developing pharmaceuticals,
biosensors, and artificial cells. The hybrid vesicles can be symmetric,
with two leaflets of identical compositions, or asymmetric, with leaflets
of dissimilar compositions, which can lead to dramatically altered
properties. However, existing methods for producing symmetric and
asymmetric hybrid vesicles often result in heterogeneous compositions and
sizes, making it challenging to quantify the effect of asymmetry and
limiting applications. Here, we use a microfluidic approach to produce
hybrid vesicles with either symmetric or asymmetric leaflets and precisely
engineered compositions. We find that the vesicles with asymmetric
leaflets are significantly stiffer and tougher than those with symmetric
leaflets; moreover, the lateral diffusivity of lipids is greatly
decreased. The structure for improved toughness consists of a stretchable
lipid inner leaflet and a fully continuous polymer outer leaflet. This
approach to precisely engineer asymmetric structures can be applied to
hybrid vesicles composed of block copolymers and phospholipids soluble in
chloroform and hexane, further expanding their applications.