Measurement of the glucose permeation rate across phospholipid bilayers using small unilamellar vesicles. Effect of membrane composition and temperature.

Small unilamellar vesicles were used to measure the permeability of saturated phosphatidylcholine bilayers to glucose. The presented method circumvents most of the common restriction of classical permeability experiments. Increasing the fatty acid chain length of the lipids reduced the permeation rate significantly.