LIPOSOME STABILITY AND FORMATION - EXPERIMENTAL PARAMETERS AND THEORIES ON THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION

The most important characteristics of liposomes, in addition to chemic al composition and surface properties, are size distribution and lamel larity. Liposomes can be formed by many different preparation techniqu es, which according to the literature yield rather well defined vesicl e preparations. In contrast to abundant information on the experimenta l procedures and preparation protocols the theoretical understanding o f these processes is lacking. Only geometrical models of structural ch anges exist for few preparation procedures and size of the liposomes p repared by sonication and detergent depletion method were estimated us ing simple models. In this paper we first outline different theories o n the stability of liposomes and their influence on the size distribut ion. In the experimental section we shall briefly present the importan ce of size distribution in experimental work and influence of various experimental parameters on the size distributions obtained.