Giant unilamellar vesicles as membrane model for interaction analysis with agrochemicals

Abstract

Giant Unilamellar Vesicles as Membrane Model for Interaction Analysis with Agrochemicals Brazil is known by its huge consume of pesticides, which, despite their necessity in large area agriculture, are classified as emerging pollutant and are usually present in water ingested by the population. Among all the groups that belong to pesticide class, herbicides group is the most important cause of death by human intoxication in the country. However, there is still a knowledge gap when it comes to chronic exposure to low concentrations of these agrochemicals. Since plasma membrane is the first barrier for the entrance of substances in the cells, the main goal of this study will be the analysis of interaction of these pollutants with bioinspired systems of biological membranes to investigate the possible damages caused to the lipid structure of the membrane. Among several known membrane models, giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) were chosen for this IC project to gain information regarding morphology and permeability changes on GUVs caused by the agrochemicals by means of phase contrast and fluorescence microscopy techniques. The project will be sectioned in two parts, being the first dedicated to the student optimize the fabrication process of GUVs, monitored by microscopy techniques, and the second to investigate the exposure of GUVs to the agrochemicals, added to the computational methods to analyse the obtained results. This IC project is linked to the Thematic project FAPESP 2018/22214-6 "Rumo à convergência de tecnologias: de sensores e biossensores à visualização de informação e aprendizado de máquina para análise de dados em diagnóstico clínico". (AU)