The aim of this project is to carry out a systematic study of the formation and properties of single-walled phospholipid vesicles from detergent-solubilized phospholipids. Preparative methods will be designed to be equally applicable for making pure lipid vesicles (with entrapped aqueous solutes) or vesicles containing bilayer-inserted transport proteins or other intrinsic membrane proteins. Effect of variations in preparative procedure on vesicle size, stability, permeability and fusibility will be investigated. Effects of incomplete detergent removal on permeability or fusibility may prove to be particularly interesting for practical applications. The long term goal is to establish a sound foundation for the use of vesicles for drug delivery or similar therapeutic missions, principally in cancer research; and also for functional studies of purified membrane proteins, e.g. in ion transport studies.
| Tanford, C (1987) Amphiphile orientation: physical chemistry and biological function. Biochem Soc Trans 15 Suppl:1S-7S |
| Hastings, D F; Reynolds, J A; Tanford, C (1986) Circular dichroism of the two major conformational states of mammalian (Na+ + K+)-ATPase. Biochim Biophys Acta 860:566-9 |
