Rapid Production of Liposomes using Electrodialysis

Abstract

Liposomes, enclosed spherical vesicles that mimic the cell membrane, are currently used for a large variety of scientific and medical applications, including drug delivery into tumors. They may be produced by employing a large variety of methods such as sonication, extrusion, organic phase separation, and several others. Dialysis, i.e. separation of a detergent phase by filtration, is a very affordable approach for liposome production. Nonetheless, it may imply the use of dedicated equipment, large amounts of exchange buffers, and extended time required for production. In order to alleviate many of these shortcomings, we investigated liposome production by employing electrodialysis as a fast and reliable method. Unlike traditional dialysis, the proposed approach encompasses quick separation of the charged detergent from the bulk, driven by an electrophoretic force. Our work shows that liposomes may be obtained from multiple lipid mixtures much faster than traditional dialysis and by employing multiple detergents. In addition, we also investigated successful loading of fluorescent dyes into liposomes as well as further separation during electrodialysis. Physical characterization and load assessments were performed by Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and fluorescence spectroscopy (FS), which were also employed for stability studies. Our investigations also focused on examining the influence presented by lipid composition, detergent chemistry, concentrations, and electric field parameters on the produced liposomes. We concluded that electrodialysis may prove an extremely useful and versatile method for fast and reliable production of stable liposomes to be used for scientific and medical applications.