Preparation and characteristics of lipid vesicles

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
As determined by electron microscopy, lipid sonicated in buffer initially forms large vesicles which may be multilamellar. Prolonged sonication results in a population of vesicles of smaller, but not uniform diameters. These vesicles are bounded by only one bilayer. The lipid suspension can be partially fractionated according to size by column chromatography. A fraction of the eluate has been selected for further study. The weight-average vesicle weight and average radius of gyration are obtained by lightscattering measurements. The volume of buffer enclosed by the vesicles is determined using14C- or3H-labelled sugars as a marker. These values are in reasonable agreement with the corresponding values calculated from the size distribution of the vesicle fraction obtained by electron microscopy.