SUVs are small unilamellar vesicles that condense nucleic acids on the surface and produce “spaghetti

… Some investigators have loaded nucleic acids into SUVs using a variety of methods; however, the bulk of the DNA does not load or stay within the liposomes. Furthermore, most of the processes used for loading nucleic acids within liposomes are extremely time-consuming and not cost-effective. Therefore, SUVs are not the ideal liposomes for creating nonviral vehicles for targeted delivery. Complexes made using MLVs appear as “Swiss rolls” when viewing cross-sections by cryo-electron Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical microscopy [33]. These complexes can become too large for systemic administration or deliver nucleic Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical acids inefficiently into cells due to inability to “unravel” at the cell surface. Addition of ligands onto MLV liposome-DNA complexes further aggravates these problems. Therefore, MLVs are not useful for the selleck development of targeted delivery of nucleic acids. Using a formulation developed in our laboratory, nucleic acids are efficiently encapsulated between two bilamellar invaginated vesicles, BIVs [1]. We created these Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical unique structures using 1,2-bis(oleoyloxy)-3-(trimethylammino)propane (DOTAP) and synthetic cholesterol (Chol) and a novel formulation procedure. This procedure is different because it includes a brief, low-frequency sonication followed by

manual extrusion through filters of decreasing pore size. The 0.1 and 0.2um filters used are made of aluminum oxide and not polycarbonate that is typically used by other protocols. Aluminum oxide membranes contain more pores per surface area that are evenly spaced

and sized and have straight channels. During the manual Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical extrusion process, the liposomes are passed Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical through each of four different sized filters only once. This process produces 88% invaginated liposomes. Use of high frequency sonication and/or mechanical extrusion produces only SUVs. BIVs condense unusually large amounts of nucleic acids of any size Figure 2 as well as viruses Figure 3. Furthermore, addition of other DNA condensing agents including polymers is not necessary. For example, condensation of plasmid DNA onto polymers prior to encapsulation in the BIVs did not increase condensation or subsequent gene expression after transfection in vitro Tolmetin or in vivo. Encapsulation of nucleic acids by these BIVs alone is spontaneous and immediate, and, therefore, cost-effective requiring only one step of simple mixing. The extruded BIV DOTAP:Chol-nucleic acid complexes are also large enough so that they are not cleared rapidly by Kupffer cells in the liver and yet extravasate across tight barriers, including the endothelial cell barrier of the lungs in a normal mouse, and diffuse through target organs efficiently [18].