Elsevier

Talanta

Volume 68, Issue 5, 28 February 2006, Pages 1421-1431
Talanta

Review
Liposomes in analyses

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2005.08.044Get rights and content

Abstract

The use of liposomes as analytical and bioanalytical reagents has been shown to be successful of in a variety of different applications that will be reviewed here. Due to their high surface area, large internal volume, and ability to conjugate bilayer lipids with a variety of biorecognition elements liposomes have been used in homogenous and heterogeneous assays, providing signal amplification both as intact or lysed vesicles. This review covers the discussion of their application in recent liposome-based immunoassay publications and includes the growing number of other non-immunoassay applications as an evidence of their immense versatility. In this article, a general background about liposomes is given first that extends past the use of liposomes as analytical tools. The main discussion is then divided by the manner in which liposomes are utilized as signaling reagents for the assays. Where available, the detection limits for common analytes that have been assayed using multiple liposome-based detection systems are presented. The advantages of using liposomes in terms of sensitivity versus other techniques are also discussed.

Section snippets

General background on liposomes

Liposomes are highly versatile structures for research, therapeutic, and analytical applications. They are composed of a lipid bilayer with the hydrophobic chains of the lipids forming the bilayer and the polar headgroups of the lipids oriented towards the extravesicular solution and inner cavity (Fig. 1).

Phospholipids with different polar headgroups functionalized for conjugation or to reduce liposome aggregation and hydrophobic regions of different chain length and saturation are used to

Liposomes in analyses: general background and assay formats

Liposomes offer much utility as analytical reagents due to their high surface area, large internal volume, and ability to conjugate bilayer lipids with a variety of biorecognition elements. Supported planar bilayers formed upon liposome fusion for the study of molecular interactions are beyond the scope of this article, but have been extensively reviewed elsewhere [73], [74]. While excellent reviews of the uses of liposomes in immunoassays are available in the literature [75], [76], [77], this

Assays relying on liposome encapsulation volume and bilayer composition

Labels for nucleic acid diagnostics and immunoassays ideally yield stable, rapid, sensitive and inexpensive analytical assays [82]. They can generally be grouped into three broad categories: individual labels, such as quantum dots, fluorescent or radioactive tags; multiple labels, such as branched DNA, dendrimers, or latex beads; and labels which actively generate signaling molecules, such as enzymes. Liposomes fall into the multiple label category since hundreds to hundreds of thousands of

Assays relying on liposome size and bilayer composition

The following papers describe using liposomes purely for their comparatively large size and bilayer composition to generate analytical signals. Measurements from quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM) are commonly employed. QCMs are piezoelectric quartz-crystal transducers which exhibit a decrease in frequency upon binding of materials onto their surface [136]. The change in frequency is directly related to the mass of the materials bound and can extend into the nanogram range [137]. Surface-plasmon

Comparison of liposomes to other signal enhancement methods

The advantage of liposomes as signal amplification tool has been pointed out by all researchers integrating these multi-label systems into the analytical assay. However, encapsulation efficiency, steric hindrance of the binding events due to the large size of the vesicles and their multivalency make a theoretical calculation of signal amplification in comparison to single labels more difficult. This section will review the available literature on experimental data comparing liposome attached

Future directions

This review was intended to elucidate the variety of ways in which liposomes have been used to date as analytical reagents. These methods included relying on the substantial mass and charge difference that a tagged liposome could provide and the large number of signaling molecules that can be released to provide a signal. While many variations were presented, further study will likely yield even more options for using liposomes in analysis including furthering the use of chemiluminescent

References (154)

  • M. Angelova et al.

    Chem. Phys. Lipids

    (1999)
  • A. Fischer et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (2000)
  • N. Toyran et al.

    Chem. Phys. Lipids

    (2003)
  • M. Romanowski et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (1997)
  • W. Braguini et al.

    Toxicol. Lett.

    (2004)
  • D. Trombetta et al.

    Il Farmaco

    (2001)
  • Y. Abdiche et al.

    Anal. Biochem.

    (2004)
  • F. Beigi et al.

    J. Chromatogr. A

    (1995)
  • G. Caldwell et al.

    J. Chromatogr. A

    (1998)
  • P. Lundahl et al.

    J. Chromatogr. B

    (1999)
  • H. Schott et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (1992)
  • V. Weissig et al.

    FEBS Lett.

    (1986)
  • V. Kung et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (1986)
  • G. Rule et al.

    Anal. Biochem.

    (1997)
  • S. Katoh et al.

    Colloids Surf. A

    (1996)
  • C. Hansen et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (1995)
  • J. Ho et al.

    Anal. Chim. Acta

    (2000)
  • C. Chen et al.

    Talanta

    (2005)
  • N. Zhang et al.

    Int. J. Pharm.

    (2005)
  • C. Hansen et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (1995)
  • A. Plant et al.

    Anal. Biochem.

    (1989)
  • J. Zhu et al.

    J. Colloid Interface Sci.

    (2005)
  • V. Torchilin

    Eur. J. Pharm. Sci.

    (2000)
  • B. Lestini et al.

    J. Control. Release

    (2002)
  • J. Moreira et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (2001)
  • T. Minko

    Adv. Drug Deliv. Rev.

    (2004)
  • E. Moase et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (2001)
  • T. Ishida et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (2001)
  • S. Wang et al.

    J. Control. Release

    (1998)
  • M. Turk et al.

    Cancer Lett.

    (2004)
  • E. Forssen et al.

    Adv. Drug Deliv. Rev.

    (1998)
  • P. Walde et al.

    Biomol. Eng.

    (2001)
  • S. Semple et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (2001)
  • P. Monnard et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (1997)
  • A. Bailey et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (2000)
  • G. Gregoriadis et al.

    Methods

    (1999)
  • A. Baeumner et al.

    Biosens. Bioelectron.

    (2003)
  • C. Yoon et al.

    Biosens. Bioelectron.

    (2003)
  • A. Wagner et al.

    Eur. J. Pharm. Biopharm.

    (2002)
  • A. Sharma et al.

    Int. J. Pharm.

    (1997)
  • N. Deo et al.

    Colloids Surf. B

    (2004)
  • D. Felnerova et al.

    Curr. Opin. Biotechnol.

    (2004)
  • E. Berg et al.

    J. Microb. Methods

    (2003)
  • T. Oberholzer et al.

    Chem. Biol.

    (1995)
  • J.T. Groves et al.

    J. Immunol. Methods

    (2003)
  • H. Rongen et al.

    J. Immunol. Methods

    (1997)
  • D. Litzinger et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (1992)
  • M. Vogl et al.

    Clin. Biochem.

    (1996)
  • W. Dandliker et al.

    Immunochemistry

    (1973)
  • A. Robinson et al.

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (1998)
  • Cited by (134)

    • Tethering functionality to lipid interfaces by a fast, simple and controllable post synthesis method

      2019, Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces
      Citation Excerpt :

      This enables the efficient functionalization of the vesicle surface even with temperature-sensitive or otherwise fragile biological molecules, which can either be attached to such a lipopeptide or a different suitable lipophilic anchor molecule. The insertion-method using the lipopeptide-biotin, which performed best in this study, was then compared to the standard modification method with DPPE-biotin which is commonly used for the functionalization of liposomes [32]. Here, different batches with varying DPPE-biotin contents (0–16 mol% regarding the total phospholipid concentration) were prepared by adding it directly to the lipid mixture prior to liposome synthesis.

    • Biomimetic vesicles for electrochemical sensing

      2018, Current Opinion in Electrochemistry
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text