ARCHAEOSOMES: STRUCTURAL STABILITY OF ALBUMINE IN PHAGOSOMES

GONZALEZ R; KLOSTER A; PRIETO MJ; MONTANARI J; PETRAY P; MORILLA MJ; ROMERO EL

Iguazú, Misiones, Argentina

Congreso; XL Reunión Anual de SAIB; 2004

SOCIEDAD ARGENTINA DE INVESTIGACIÓN BIOQUÍMICA Y BIOLOGÍA MOLECULAR

The main interest of archaeosomes (vesicles formed by polar lipids extracted from archaebacteria) resides in their adjuvancy to humoral and cellular immune responses. However, since their bilayers show high mechanical and chemical structural resistance, conventional methods for loading proteins as well as disruption methods of vesicles are useless for archaesomes. To test the occurrence of those phenomena inside cultured cells, archaeosomes prepared with total polar lipids extracted from halophilic archaeas, loaded with the fluorescent pH-sensitive dye HPTS quenched with DPX and containing albumin, were incubated with J774 macrophages. Structural stability was quantified as the permanence of intact albumin in phagosomes. Efficient internalisation of archaeosomes and overall retention of their aqueous contents during processing were assessed by fluorescence microscopy. Phagosomes were isolated, their contents extracted and subjected to denaturing gel electrophoresis. The exceptional structural stability of archaeosomes inside the cells, revealed by a plot of intact albumin as a function of time, was several orders of magnitude over conventional liposomes.