Preparation of large unilamellar vesicles

Single (unilamellar) and oligolamellar lipid bilayer vesicles of large diameter have great potential in membrane research. In particular, large unilamellar bilayer vesicles (diam. >50 m) would permit the insertion of microelectrodes for the measurement of the electrical properties of lipid bilayer membranes of different compositions. Furthermore, vesicles large enough to be observed by light microscopy could be fused with cells with the aid of the electric field method [l-4]. Since vesicles (liposomes) can be loaded with macromolecules, this might be an elegant means of transferring proteins or plasmids into cells. Large vesicles with different lipid compositions and only one unit membrane …