In a quest to build functional artificial cells and understand the emergence of life on Earth, it is critical to
understand how membranous compartments can undergo morphological changes. Whilst modern cells can
undergo shape changes by employing complex enzyme machinery, artificial cells or protocells require a
fluctuating environment to drive changes*. Even if an artificial cell were to encapsulate the proteins needed
for morphological changes, such changes usually occur on the timescales of minutes to hours.
Here, we demonstrate the effect of the perturbations from hyperosmotic shocks and light stimuli on shape
changes and division of phospholipid vesicles in the absence of photo-switchable lipids. When phospholipid
vesicles are subjected to hyperosmotic stress, they undergo a series of rapid and visually striking
morphological transformations. Triggered by water efflux under osmotic pressure, the parent vesicles
transform into a series of fragile external buds and remarkably rejoined back to single vesicle upon
exposure of light. This reversibility in shape can be observed over at least five cycles, all within ten
minutes.
In contrast, multilamellar vesicles (MLVs) subjected to similar conditions do not exhibit this reversibility,
highlighting the influence of lamellarity on membrane dynamics. Taken together, these dynamic,
controllable, photo-switchable vesicles open new horizons for various applications in synthetic biology
and biomaterials with potential applications in RNA delivery, triggered release, and adaptive nanocarriers
for synthetic biology and therapeutics.