Nanoparticle agglomerates in magnetoliposomes

CINTRA, E. R.; FERREIRA, F S; SANTOS JUNIOR, J. L.; CAMPELLO, J. C.; SOCOLOVSKY, L. M.; LIMA, E. M.; BAKUZIS, A. F.

Nanotechnology

IOP Publishing

Año: 2009 vol. 20 p. 45103 - 45103

0957-4484

Magnetoliposomes consist of vesicles composed of a phospholipid membrane encapsulatingmagnetic nanoparticles. These systems have several important applications, such as in MRIcontrast agents, drug and gene carriers, and cancer treatment devices. For all of theseapplications, controlling the number of encapsulated magnetic nanoparticles is a key issue.In this work, we used a magneto-optical technique to obtain information about the efficiency ofencapsulation, the number of nanoparticles encapsulated per liposome and also about theformation of the nanoparticle structures. The parameters studied included the effect of theduration of sonication, the presence of cholesterol in the liposome membrane, as well astime-related stability. For the liposomal vesicles prepared in this work, we found between 35and 300 nanoparticles encapsulated per liposome, depending on the experimental conditions,consisting of small linear chains of nanoparticles, basically trimers and tetramers. Themethodology developed might be useful for the investigation and improvement of the propertiesof several magnetic nanocarrier systems.