Immobilization of phospholipid vesicles on alkyl derivatives of agarose gel beads

Abstract We have immobilized phospholipid vesicles on hydrophobic derivatives of agarose gel beads. The vesicles were prepared from cholate-solubilized egg yolk phospholipids by gel filtration in 0.2 M NaCl at pH 7.1, which produced small vesicles, or in 0.5 M (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 at pH 8.0, which yielded large ones. The small vesicles eluted with K d 0.4–0.6 and the large ones with K d 0.05 on Sepharose 4B. Butyl, octyl and dodecyl sulfide derivatives of Sepharose 4B were synthesized using 1,4-butanediol diglycidyl ether and alkyl mercaptans (Maisano, F., Belew, M. and Porath, J. (1985) J. Chromatogr. 321, 305–317). The phospholipid vesicles were immobolized on 0.6–1-ml columns of these adsorbents in the salt solution that had been used for the preparation of the liposomes. A ligand concentration of 8 μmol per ml gel was sufficient for immobilization of small as well as large vesicles. The capacity of immobilization per ml gel was at least 20–100 and 1.5–3 μmol of phospholipids for small and large vesicles, respectively. The rate of adsorption of small vesicles was initially 0.3–0.5 μmol of phospholipids per min per ml gel, but decreased later to 0.2–0.3 μmol/min per ml as the gel bead surfaces approached saturation. These rates were determined at a vesicle concentration corresponding to 1.2 mM phospholipids and at room temperature. The butyl adsorbent gave a higher initial adsorption rate but a lower capacity than the dodecyl adsorbent, probably due to differences in the energy thresholds for ligand penetration through the hydrophilic surface layer of the vesicles, and to differences in the binding strength. The maximal concentration of adsorbed small vesicles that we achieved, 100 μ mol of phospholipids per milliliter octyl surfide-Sepharose 4B, would be equivalent to close-packing of the spherical phospholipid vesicles in 40% of the accessible volume of the gel beads.