Fatty vesicles

While most vesicles are formed from double-tail amphiphiles such as lipids, they can also be made from some single chain fatty acids [73], surfactant-cosurfactant mixtures [71], and bola (two-headed) amphiphiles [74]. In addition to the more common spherical shells, tubular vesicles have been observed in DMPC-alcohol mixtures [70]. Polymerizable lipids allow photo- or chemical polymerization that can sometimes stabilize the vesicle [65] however, the structural change in the bilayer on polymerization can cause giant vesicles to bud into smaller shells [76]. Multivesicular liposomes are collections of hundreds of bilayer enclosed water-filled compartments that are suitable for localized drug delivery [77]. The structures of these water-in-water vesicles resemble those of foams (see Section XIV-7) with the polyhedral structure persisting down to molecular dimensions as shown in Fig. XV-11. 

Okane et al. measured the CMC values of a-sulfonated fatty acid higher alcohol esters. These molecules can be regarded as double-chain amphiphiles, but the CMC values are about three to six orders of magnitude larger than expected for double-chain amphiphiles that can spontaneously form vesicles in water [60]. 

The development of monoalkyl phosphate as a low skin irritating anionic surfactant is accented in a review with 30 references on monoalkyl phosphate salts, including surface-active properties, cutaneous effects, and applications to paste and liquid-type skin cleansers, and also phosphorylation reactions from the viewpoint of industrial production [26]. Amine salts of acrylate ester polymers, which are physiologically acceptable and useful as surfactants, are prepared by transesterification of alkyl acrylate polymers with 4-morpholinethanol or the alkanolamines and fatty alcohols or alkoxylated alkylphenols, and neutralizing with carboxylic or phosphoric acid. The polymer salt was used as an emulsifying agent for oils and waxes [70]. Preparation of pharmaceutical liposomes with surfactants derived from phosphoric acid is described in [279]. Lipid bilayer vesicles comprise an anionic or zwitterionic surfactant which when dispersed in H20 at a temperature above the phase transition temperature is in a micellar phase and a second lipid which is a single-chain fatty acid, fatty acid ester, or fatty alcohol which is in an emulsion phase, and cholesterol or a derivative. 

The lipid content of the membranes can be varied, allowing systematic examination of the effects of varying lipid composition on certain functions. For instance, vesicles can be made that are composed solely of phosphatidylchohne or, alternatively, of known mixtures of different phospholipids, glycohpids, and cholesterol. The fatty acid moieties of the lipids used can also be varied by employing synthetic lipids of known... 

Transferosomes represent another system of encapsulation using ultradeformable vesicle carriers for bioactive molecules, applied until now for direct transdermal drug delivery. They are built from polar lipids and have high flexibility, and are rich in unsaturated fatty acids and carotenoid pigments." ... 

FIG. 11 Order parameter variation along acyl chains in red cell ghosts ( ), small unilamellar vesicles of egg phosphatidylcholine (V), and paraffin oil (+), as determined by the fluorescence anisotropy decay of the w-anthroyloxy fatty acid probes. (Reprinted by permission from Ref. 12.)... 

The same approach derived for weak bases can also be applied to the uptake of simple weak acids, and to the transbilayer transport of acidic lipids, such as fatty acids and some phospholipids. We consider uptake of a simple weak acid into an LUV with basic interior. Let [AH], ([A ]o) and [AH] ([A ] ) refer to the concentrations of the neutral (ionized) form(s) of the weak acid on the outside and inside of the vesicle, respectively. Then, the total external and internal concentrations of the weak acid can be written as... 

Kleinfeld, A.M., Chu, P. and Storch, J. (1997) Flip-flop is slow and rate-limiting for the movement of long chain anthroyloxy fatty acids across lipid vesicles. 

Fig. 10.5 Schematic diagrams a micelle consisting of ionized fatty acid molecules, a phospholipid bilayer and the vesicle bilayer of a liposome...

Fig. 10.7 RNA synthesis in vesicles. Membrane permeability can be regulated by choosing the correct chain length of the fatty acids in the phospholipids. Short chains (a) make the bilayer so unstable that even large molecules such as proteases can enter the vesicle interior and damage the polymerase. Carbon chains which are too long (b) prevent the entry of substrate molecules such as ADR RNA polymerisation in the vesicle occurs only with C14 fatty acids (c)...

The clay mineral montmorillonite, which is often used in different prebiotic syntheses, is probably now the most important mineral for experiments on prebiotic chemistry. It has shown its abilities in the area of simulation experiments on the formation of primitive cellular compartments montmorillonite accelerates the spontaneous conversion of fatty acid micelles to vesicles. Clay particles are often incorporated into the vesicle, just as is RNA, which is adsorbed at such clay particles. If the vesicles have been formed, they can continue to grow if fatty acids are fed to them via micelles. If the vesicles are pressed through 100 nm pore filters, they divide without dilution of their contents. 

Support for this conclusion is provided by the hydroperoxide specificity of BP oxidation. The scheme presented in Figure 6 requires that the same oxidizing agent is generated by reaction of h2°2/ peroxy acids, or alkyl hydroperoxides with the peroxidase. Oxidation of any compound by the iron-oxo intermediates should be supported by any hydroperoxide that is reduced by the peroxidase. This is clearly not the case for oxidation of BP by ram seminal vesicle microsomes as the data in Figure 7 illustrate. Quinone formation is supported by fatty acid hydroperoxides but very poorly or not at all by simple alkyl hydroperoxides or H2C>2. The fact that... 

Peroxyl radicals are the species that propagate autoxidation of the unsaturated fatty acid residues of phospholipids (50). In addition, peroxyl radicals are intermediates in the metabolism of certain drugs such as phenylbutazone (51). Epoxidation of BP-7,8-dihydrodiol has been detected during lipid peroxidation induced in rat liver microsomes by ascorbate or NADPH and during the peroxidatic oxidation of phenylbutazone (52,53). These findings suggest that peroxyl radical-mediated epoxidation of BP-7,8-dihydrodiol is general and may serve as the prototype for similar epoxidations of other olefins in a variety of biochemical systems. In addition, peroxyl radical-dependent epoxidation of BP-7,8-dihydrodiol exhibits the same stereochemistry as the arachidonic acid-stimulated epoxidation by ram seminal vesicle microsomes. This not only provides additional... 

Phospholipids are the most important of these liposomal constituents. Being the major component of cell membranes, phospholipids are composed of a hydrophobic, fatty acid tail, and a hydrophilic head group. The amphipathic nature of these molecules is the primary force that drives the spontaneous formation of bilayers in aqueous solution and holds the vesicles together. 

M. Vincent, B. de Foresta, J. Gallay, and A. Alfsen, Nanosecond fluorescence anisotropy decays of n-(9-anthroyloxy) fatty acids in dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine vesicles with regard to isotropic solvents, Biochemistry 21, 708-716 (1982). 

Numerous methods have been developed for attaching ligands to the surface of liposomes for reviews, see Refs. (3,6 ). For peptides, they fall into two major categories (i) covalent coupling of the peptides to preformed liposomes that contain functionalized hydrophobic anchors such as, e.g., derivatives of phos-phatidylethanolamine (PE) or (ii) incorporation of lipopeptides, obtained by conjugation of peptides to hydrophobic anchors (fatty acids, phospholipids), into liposomes either during the preparation of the vesicles or by postinsertion into preformed vesicles. In this section, we will briefly discuss these techniques and focus on the ones we have been using in our own work. 

Peroxisomes are spherical vesicles bounded by a single membrane. They contain enzymes that catalyse oxidations that produce hydrogen peroxide which is degraded by the enzyme catalase. For example, very long or unusual fatty acids that are present in the diet but have no function are completely degraded in the peroxisomes. 

Figure 8.31 Comparison of glutamine as a fuel in the blood with glucose and fatty acids. The concentration of glutamine in the blood is similar to that of fatty acid. The amount of glutamine stored in muscle is similar to the amount of glycogen stored in the liver that is, about 80 g. Mobilisation of each of these stored fuels is discussed in Chapters 6, 7, 17 and 18. It appears that glutamine is stored free in the cytosol. Polyglutamine on vesicles containing glutamine have not been found.

CN198 Prieto, R. M., W. Stremmel, C. Sales, and J. A. Tur. Effect of dietary fatty acids on jejunal and ileal oleic acid uptake by rat brush border membrane vesicles. Eur J Med Res 1996 1(7) 355-360. 

Let us recall the micellar aqueous system, as this procedure is actually the basic one. The chemistry is based on fatty acids, that build micelles in higher pH ranges and vesicles at pH c. 8.0-8.5 (Hargreaves and Deamer, 1978a). The interest in fatty acids lies also in the fact that they are considered possible candidates for the first prebiotic membranes, as will be seen later on. The experimental apparatus is particularly simple, also a reminder of a possible prebiotic situation the water-insoluble ethyl caprylate is overlaid on an aqueous alkaline solution, so that at the macroscopic interphase there is an hydrolysis reaction that produces caprylate ions. The reaction is very slow, as shown in Figure 7.15, but eventually the critical micelle concentration (cmc) is reached in solution, and thus the first caprylate micelles are formed. Aqueous micelles can actually be seen as lipophylic spherical surfaces, to which the lipophylic ethyl caprylate (EC) avidly binds. The efficient molecular dispersion of EC on the micellar surface speeds up its hydrolysis, (a kind of physical micellar catalysis) and caprylate ions are rapidly formed. This results in the formation of more micelles. However, more micelles determine more binding of the water-insoluble EC, with the formation of more and more micelles a typical autocatalytic behavior. The increase in micelle population was directly monitored by fluorescence quenching techniques, as already used in the case of the... 

Two popular vesicle-forming surfactants are shown in Figure 9.20, fatty acids and palmitoyl-oleoyl-phosphatidylcholine (POPC). In both cases, the hydrophobic parts are emphasized. Oleate, as for most long-chain fatty acids, forms vesicle spontaneously, on simple addition of its concentrated aqueous or methanol solution into water POPC and other lipids also form hposomes spontaneously when added to water from an alcoholic solution, or by first preparing a lipid him from an organic soluhon (by evaporahon), then adding water and stirring so as to induce a vortex. 

More convincing evidence has been obtained for the synthesis of simpler compounds, such as straight-chain fatty acids. This observation is important because, as we have already seen in the chapter on self-organization and self-reproduction, these compounds form stable vesicles. Prebiotic synthesis of these compounds was reported for example by Nooner et al. (1976). More recently monocarboxylic acids have been observed from a spark discharge synthesis (Yuen et al, 1981) and from a Fischer-Tropf type of reaction (McCollom et al, 1999 Rushdi and Simoneit,... 

Of all mentioned prebiotic membranogenic molecules, the ones that have gained more attention in the literature are long-chain fatty acids. In addition to their prebiotic relevance, these compounds are relatively simple from the structural point of view, and most of them are easily available. We will see in the next chapter that these vesicles have acquired a particular importance in the held of the origin of life. In fact, the hrst inveshgations on self-reproducing aqueous micelles and vesicles were carried out with caprylate (Bachmann et al, 1992) and most of the recent studies on vesicles involve vesicles from oleic acid/oleate (for simplicity we will refer to them as oleate vesicles). In this section, I would like to illustrate some of the basic properties of these surfactant aggregates. 

---