Phospholipids phase transition temperature

Lee, A. G., Effects of charged drugs on the phase transition temperature of phospholipid bilayers, Biochim. Biophys. Acta 514, 95-104 (1978). 

Liposome Formation. The pioneering investigations of Bang-ham (5) have shown that thin films of natural phospholipids form bilayer assemblies if they are lyophilized in excess water by simple handshaking above the phase transition temperature. While this procedure results in the formation of large, multibilayered spherical structures, by ultrasonication of such lipid dispersions small unilamellar liposomes are formed (16), which are schematically shown in Figure 10. Additional metTiods for liposome preparation are described in a number of reviews (17,44,45,46). 

Polymeric phospholipids based on dioctadecyldimethylammonium methacrylate were formed by photopolymerization to give polymer-encased vesicles which retained phase behavior. The polymerized vesicles were more stable than non-polymerized vesicles, and permeability experiments showed that vesicles polymerized above the phase transition temperature have lower permeability than the nonpolymerized ones [447-449]. Kono et al. [450,451] employed a polypeptide based on lysine, 2 aminoisobutyric acid and leucine as the sensitive polymer. In the latter reference the polypeptide adhered to the vesicular lipid bilayer membrane at high pH by assuming an amphiphilic helical conformation, while at low pH the structure was disturbed resulting in release of the encapsulated substances. 

Closed bilayer aggregates, formed from phospholipids (liposomes) or from surfactants (vesicles), represent one of the most sophisticated models of the biological membrane [55-58, 69, 72, 293]. Swelling of thin lipid (or surfactant) films in water results in the formation of onion-like, 1000- to 8000-A-diameter multilamellar vesicles (MLVs). Sonication of MLVs above the temperature at which they are transformed from a gel into a liquid (phase-transition temperature) leads to the formation of fairly uniform, small (300- to 600-A-diameter) unilamellar vesicles (SUVs Fig. 34). Surfactant vesicles can be considered to be spherical bags with diameters of a few hundred A and thickness of about 50 A. Typically, each vesicle contains 80,000-100,000 surfactant molecules. 

Haupft, R. and Mohr, K. (1985). In uence of cationic amphiphilic drugs on the phase transition temperature of phospholipids with different polar headgrou ochim. Biophys. Acta, 814, 156-162. 

In addition to this thermotropic mesomorphism, a lysotropic mesomorphism is observed [98]. The phase transition temperature, Tt, for the transition from the crystalline to the liquid crystalline state decreases as a function of water content. The decrease in Ttis due to destabilization of the crystal lattice in the head group region by water molecules. This, in turn, decreases the interaction between the fatty acid chains. When the water content reaches a certain level, the phospholipids assume a thermodynamically optimal arrangements whereby the fatty acids are directed to the... 

Tab. 3.10 Effect of different cationic amphiphilic drugs on the phase transition temperature Tt of liposomes from different phospholipids. (Reprinted from Tab. 1 of ref. 53, with permission from Elsevier Science)...

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