Nanoparticles are finding expanding uses in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications, so that their interactions with lipids are increasingly important. In order to quantify the amount of adsorbed lipid to nanoparticles in high salt/buffer and in the presence of excess lipid, conditions expected in vivo, in vitro or in the environment, it is necessary to understand the morphology of the nanoparticle/lipid aggregates, since the high surface area of nanoparticles usually leads to extensive clustering. Here we investigate mixtures of 100 nm silica (SiO2) nanoparticles and zwitterionc lipids in the form of small unilamellar vesicles (SUVs) under conditions where single-supported lipid bilayer (single-SLB) formation occurs, and in the presence of excess lipid. We show that these suspensions are colloidally stable both above and below the gel-to-liquid crystalline phase transition temperature (Tm), but that the mechanism of stabilization and structure of the suspensions depends on the ionic strength of the surrounding medium.

Separation of supported lipid bilayer nanoparticles from excess vesicles in solution

244th National Meeting (2012)

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