Model membranes are important for studying drug delivery and cell surface interactions. This study focuses on preparing large unilamellar vesicles (LUVs) to incorporate membrane proteins and fuse these proteoliposomes to giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs). Through this method, biologically relevant model membranes are produced to study the binding interactions between proteoglycans and cell-penetrating compounds (CPCs), such as Tat peptide. LUVs and GUVs with differing lipid and cholesterol composition have been made and characterized by dynamic light scattering and microscopy. Before incorporation of the proteoglycans, control binding experiments were performed on Tat and the different LUVs using isothermal titration calorimetry. The goal is to investigate the effect of vesicle composition on the interaction of CPCs and proteoglycans and compare the results to that of CPCs and glycosaminoglycans in solution. These results will be useful for future studies involving drug delivery mechanisms.

Preparation of model membranes to study the interaction between cell-penetrating compounds and proteoglycans

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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