Spontaneous Formation of Reverse Vesicles with Soybean Phosphatidyl Ethanolamine in Mixture with Triglyceride and Some Water

Abstract

Mixing the phospholipid soybean phosphatidyl ethanolamine (PE) with the triglyceride triolein and a trace amount of water leads to a spontaneous formation of isotropic aggregates. Evidence for the existence of such aggregates in pseudo-three-component systems is presented here for the first time. Dynamic light scattering and cryogenic temperature transmission electron microscopy reveal polydisperse spherical particles with radii in the range of 250−840 nm and a mean radius of the order 600 nm. From the results of both depolarized light scattering and time-resolved electro-optical birefringence (Kerr effect) the presence of aggregates with an optical anisotropy (rodlike or wormlike reverse micelles as well as particles with lamellar structure) can be excluded. The remaining possibilities are reverse vesicles and a dispersed cubic bicontinuous phase, where our results favor reverse vesicles. A necessary condition for the formation of reverse vesicles is a saturation of the PE−triolein mixture with water; at...