Enzymatic digestion of liposome-bound polysaccharides: Evidence of bridging mechanism

Laminarin, a water-soluble polysaccharide is known to induce aggregation an d fusion of liposomes. Using laminarin specific lysing enzymes for multilam ellar liposomes their aggregation was found to be fully reversible, in cont rast to small unilamellar liposomes for which irreversible fusion is the ma in process. Moreover, our results indicate that these processes are probabl y mediated by the formation of polysaccharide cross-bridges between adjacen t liposomes.