Changes in phosphatidylcholine liposomes caused by a mixture of Triton X-100 and sodium dodecyl sulfate

Additive action of two or more solutes on lipid membranes

A wide variety of biological processes, pharmaceutical applications, and technical procedures is based on the combined action of two or more soluble compounds to perturb, permeabilize, or lyse biological membranes. Here we present a general model describing the additive action of solutes on the properties of membranes or micelles. The onset and completion of membrane solubilization induced by two surfactants (lauryl maltoside, with nonyl maltoside, octyl glucoside, or CHAPS, respectively) are very well described by our model on the basis of their individual partition coefficients, cmc's, and critical mole ratios R e sat and R e sol as detected by isothermal titration calorimetry. This suggests that the thermodynamic phase transition is governed by a single parameter (e.g., spontaneous curvature) in spite of the complexity of structural changes. Such surfactant mixtures show unique features such as nonlinear solubilization boundaries and concentration-dependent effective partition coefficients. Other phenomena such as membrane leakage are predicted to obey additive action if the solutes act via the same mechanism (e.g., toroidal pore formation) but deviate from the model in the case of independent, synergistic, or antagonistic action.

Interaction of native Bowman-Birk soybean protease inhibitor and its hydrophobized derivative with multilamellar vesicles of soybean phospholipids

The interaction of native Bowman-Birk soybean protease inhibitor (BBI) and its hydrophobized derivative with multilamellar vesicles of various soybean phospholipids was investigated. Decrease in pH and introduction of negatively charged components to the lipid mixture increased BBI content in the protein-lipid complex. This suggests a contribution of electrostatic forces in the protein-lipid interaction. Protein hydrophobization insignificantly influenced BBI binding to lipids. In the complex with lipids, both proteins (BBI and its hydrophobized derivative) retained high anti-chymotrypsin activity (75-100%), which was not influenced by the presence of the ionic detergent sodium deoxycholate.

Cytosolic delivery of macromolecules: I. Synthesis and characterization of pH-sensitive acyloxyalkylimidazoles

A series of 1-(acyloxyalkyl)imidazoles (AAI) were synthesized by nucleophilic substitution of chloroalkyl esters of fatty acids with imidazole. The former was prepared from fatty acid chloride and an aldehyde. When incorporated into liposomes, these lipids show an apparent pK(a) value ranging from 5.12 for 1-(palmitoyloxymethyl)imidazole (PMI) to 5.29 for 1-[(alpha-myristoyloxy)ethyl]imidazole (alpha-MEI) as determined by a fluorescence assay. When the imidazole moiety was protonated, the lipids were surface-active, as demonstrated by hemolytic activity towards red blood cells. As expected, AAI were hydrolyzed in serum as well as in cell homogenate. They were significantly less toxic than biochemically stable N-dodecylimidazole (NDI) towards Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) and RAW 264.7 (RAW) cells as determined by MTT assay. When fed to RAW cells, fluorescein-labeled oligonucleotides encapsulated in liposomes containing 20 mol% 1-(stearoyloxymethyl)imidazole (SMI) resulted in punctate as well as partially diffuse fluorescence. In a functional assay involving down-regulation of luciferase in CV-1 cells, neutral liposomes containing imidazole lipids showed suboptimal delivery of antisense phosphorothioate oligomers. Taken together, the results suggest that AAI are of potential use in developing nontoxic, pH-sensitive liposomes. However, these liposomal formulations need to be optimized to achieve higher concentrations of pH-sensitive detergents within the endosome to facilitate efficient cytosolic release of liposome-entrapped contents.

Factors affecting leakage of trapped solutes from phospholipid vesicles during thermotropic phase transitions

Liposomes are commonly used as models for chilling and freezing damage, with leakage of water-soluble contents from the aqueous interior as the most frequently used measurement of damage. In order to achieve an understanding of the mechanism of the leakage, we have conducted a study of the factors that influence the leakage from liposomes during phase transitions. While such investigations have appeared sporadically in the literature, a detailed study has not been undertaken previously, despite the fact that liposomes are widely used as models for stress injury. Thus, we suggest that these findings will be of general interest in the cryobiology community. We now report that the following variables affected leakage from liposomes during chilling: (i) increasing the rate of cooling and warming resulted in decreased leakage; (ii) maximal leakage occurred at the measured phase transition temperature; (iii) addition of defect-forming additives such as a second phospholipid or a surfactant increased leakage from the liposomes during the phase transition but not above or below that temperature; (iv) small unilamellar vesicles leaked much more rapidly than large unilamellar vesicles; and (v) increasing the pH of the external buffer decreased leakage of carboxyfluorescein, an effect that is probably particular to ionizable solutes.

In vitro membrane penetration of modified peptide nucleic acid (PNA)

Efficient cellular uptake is crucial for the success of any drug directed towards targets inside cells. Peptide nucleic acid (PNA), a DNA analog with a promising potential as a gene-directed drug, has been shown to display slow membrane penetration in cell cultures. We here used liposomes as an in vitro model of cell membranes to investigate the effect on penetration of a PNA molecule colvalently modified with a lipophilic group, an adamantyl moiety. The adamantyl attachment was found to increase the membrane-penetration rate of PNA three-fold, as compared to corresponding unmodified PNA. From the penetration behaviour of a number of small and large molecules we could conclude that passive diffusion is the mechanism for liposome-membrane passage. Flow linear dichroism (LD) of the modified PNA in presence of rod-shaped micelles, together with octanol-water distribution experiments, showed that the adamantyl-modified PNA is amphiphilic; the driving force behind the observed increased membrane-penetration rate appears to be an accumulation of the PNA in the lipid double layer.