Liposomes in Electric Fields

Liposomes in Electric Fields (Electrophoresis, Bio-Nanotubules)

The biomimetic nature of liposomes as well as their relative ease of preparation have made them ideal for a variety of application in areas such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, gene therapy, and bioengineering. Electric field based techniques continue to be essential for the analysis and separation of bioparticles including lipid vesicles. Complex biological and biomimetic systems exhibit a wide range of intrinsic and field-induced properties; as a result, their electrokinetic behaviors are poorly understood and predicted. Understanding and characterizing these behaviors is crucial for the development of technology involving bioparticles and electric fields. Additionally, a better understanding of electric-field induced deformation can give a significant insight of the nature of similar effects in biological environments. Our work has included the study of the electrophoretic migration of various liposome preparations using capillary electrophoresis (CE), the assessment of theoretical models describing electric field-induced migration of vesicles, and qualitative and quantitative descriptions of liposome deformation caused by electric fields. Fluorescence and bright field microscopy as well as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) have been used to demonstrate the many unique shape changes experienced by vesicles undergoing electrophoresis.

Publications

Castillo, J,A.; Narciso, D.M.; Hayes, M.A. “Bionanotubule Formation from Surface Attached Liposomes using Electric Fields” Langmuir 25(1):391-6, Jan 2009.

Castillo, J.A.; Hayes, M.A. “Bionanotubules from Liposomes.” Methods in Enzymology: Liposomes Part G (465), Dec 2009.

Hayes, M.A.; Pysher M.D.; Chen, K.P. “Liposomes form nanotubules and long range networks in the presence of electric field” J. Nanosci. and Nanotechnol. 7 2283-2286, Jul 2007.

Pysher, M.D.; Hayes, M.A. “Effects of deformability, uneven surface charge distributions, and multipole moments on biocolloid electrophoretic migration” Langmuir 21 3572-3577, Apr 2005.

Pysher M.D.; Hayes, M.A. “Examination of the electrophoretic behavior of liposomes” Langmuir 20 4369-4375, May 2004.

Phayre, A.N.; Farfano, H.M.V.; Hayes, M.A. “Effects of pH gradients on liposomal charge states examined by capillary electrophoresis” Langmuir 18 6499-6503, Aug 2002.

Future Directions

Future directions of this project include continuing the enhancement of electric field-based separation of liposomes as well as membrane-associated proteins in a native-like environment by incorporating them into lipid vesicles. We are also interested on further exploring the electric field-induce behavior of other biological systems and networks.