Reduction-sensitive liposomes from a multifunctional lipid conjugate and natural phospholipids: reduction and release kinetics and cellular uptake.

The development of targeted and triggerable delivery systems is of high relevance for anticancer therapies. We report here on reduction-sensitive liposomes composed of a novel multifunctional lipidlike conjugate, containing a disulfide bond and a biotin moiety, and natural phospholipids. The incorporation of the disulfide conjugate into vesicles and the kinetics of their reduction were studied using dansyl-labeled conjugate 1 in using the dansyl fluorescence environmental sensitivity and the Förster resonance energy transfer from dansyl to rhodamine-labeled phospholipids.

Microtubes self-assembled from a cholesterol-modified nucleoside.

We describe the formation of lipid microtubes from a novel cholesterol-modified nucleoside in binary mixture with phospholipids. Stable cylindrical structures with an outer diameter of 2-3 microm and a length of 20-40 microm were formed. By varying the preparation conditions, thinner tubules with nanometre-scale diameters could also be obtained.

Lipid membranes carrying lipophilic cholesterol-based oligonucleotides--characterization and application on layer-by-layer coated particles.

Cholesterol-based lipophilic oligonucleotides incorporated into lipid membranes were studied using solid-state NMR, differential scanning calorimetry, and fluorescence methods. Lipophilic oligonucleotides can be used to build nanotechnological structures on membrane surfaces, taking advantage of the specific Watson-Crick base pairing. We used a cholesteryl-TEG anchor first described by Pfeiffer and Hook (J.