Self-Assembled "Breathing" Grana-Like Cisternae Stacks.

Membranes in cells display elaborate, dynamic morphologies intimately tied to defined cellular functions. Cisternae stacks are a common membrane morphology in cells widely found in organelles. However, compared with the well-studied spherical cell membrane mimics, cisternae stacks as organelle membrane mimics are greatly neglected because of the difficulty of fabricating this unique structure. Herein, the grana-like cisternae stacks are assembled via the reorganization of stacked microsized bicelles to mimic grana functions. The cisternae stacks are connected by fusion regions between adjacent cisternae. The number of cisternae can be controlled from ≈4 to 15 by the variation of ethanol volume percentage. Under the stimulation of solvent or negatively charged nanoparticles, the cisternae stacks can reversibly compress and expand, similar to the "breathing" property of natural grana. During the "breathing" process, nanoparticles are reversibly captured and released. Frequency resonance energy transfer is realized on the cisternae stacks trapped with two kinds of quantum dots. The cisternae stacks provide advanced membrane model for cell biotechnology, and clues for the shaping of organelles composed of cisternae. The ability of the cisternae stacks to capture materials enables them to possibly be applied in biomimetics and the design of advanced functional materials.