Liposomes, interactions with hydrophobically

New developments in immobilization surfaces have lead to the use of SPR biosensors to monitor protein interactions with lipid surfaces and membrane-associated proteins. Commercially available (BIACORE) hydrophobic and lipophilic sensor surfaces have been designed to create stable membrane surfaces. It has been shown that the hydrophobic sensor surface can be used to form a lipid monolayer (Evans and MacKenzie, 1999). This monolayer surface can be used to monitor protein-lipid interactions. For example, a biosensor was used to examine binding of Src homology 2 domain to phosphoinositides within phospholipid bilayers (Surdo et al., 1999). In addition, a lipophilic sensor surface can be used to capture liposomes and form a lipid bilayer resembling a biological membrane. 

A quite different application of liposomes as reactive compartments is in the field of drug delivery. It was found several years ago that liposomes, because of their hydrophobic nature, strongly interact with the biological cell membrane and can actually be incorporated inside by endocytosis or other mechanisms, e.g., fusion (Allison and Gregoriadis, 1974 Gregoriadis, 1976a, b 1988 1995 Papa-hadjopoulus etah, 1989). 

The finding that water-soluble flavonoids could exert their beneficial properties at the hydrophobic portion of the membrane was also observed in in vivo studies and in cells in culture. For example, erythrocytes obtained from animals fed a flavanol- and procyanidin-rich meal showed reduced susceptibility to free-radical-mediated hemolysis [Zhu et al., 2002]. Consistently, we demonstrated that procyanidin hexamers, which interact with membranes but would not be internalized, protected Caco-2 cells from AMVN- and bile-induced oxidation [Erlejman et al., 2006]. When liposomes were preincubated with a series of flavonoids with diverse hydrophobicity, not only hydrophobic flavonoids prevented AMVN-mediated lipid oxidation but also the more hydrophilic ones [Erlejman et al., 2004]. Similarly to what was previously found in liposomes, the protective effects of flavonoids against AMVN-supported oxidation was strongly associated with their capacity to prevent membrane disruption by detergents, supporting the hypothesis of a physical protection of membranes by preventing oxidants to reach fatty acids. 

Diacyllipid-polyethyleneoxide conjugates have been introduced into the controlled drug delivery area as polymeric surface modiLers for liposomes (Klibanov et al., 1990). Being incorporated into the liposome membrane by insertion of their lipidic anchor into the bilayer, such molecules can ster-ically stabilize the liposome against interaction with certain plasma proteins in the blood that results in signiLcant prolongation of the vesicle circulation time. The diacyllipid-PEO molecule itself represents a characteristic amphiphilic polymer with a bulky hydrophilic (PEO) portion and a very short but extremely hydrophobic diacyllipid part. Typically, for other PEO-containing amphiphilic block... 

Finally, it should be mentioned that the release of hydrophilic compounds entrapped in liposomes by means of the interaction of the liposomes with hydrophobic polyelectrolytes has recently been reported and shown to be pH sensitive [99]. 

Interactions of phospholipids in an aqueous medium and the formation of liposome vesicle. Phospholipids spontaneously form lipid bilayers in which the polar head groups interact with water, whereas the hydrophobic tails interact among themselves to form an environment that excludes water. The lipid bilayers are stabilized by noncovalent interactions. 

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