A successful strategy for the production of cationic magnetoliposomes

The present work describes a strategy and the mechanistic background for synthesizing magnetoliposomes (MLs) in which the bi-layered coating is partly composed of positively charged lipids. In a first step, neutral MLs are prepared from zwitterionic phosphatidylcholine vesicles and magnetite nanocores stabilized with an anionic surfactant, and then incubated with cationic vesicles formed from phosphatidylcholine and dioleoyltrimethylammoniumpropane. During this latter step, spontaneous intermembrane lipid transfer occurs. After reaching an equilibrium state, the desired cationic MLs are captured from the mixture in a high-gradient magnetophoresis setup.