产品说明书：Clophosome®-A and Control Liposomes (anionic)

How to transfer the Liposomes out of the vials?

The best way of transferring liposomes from the vials is to use a sterile needle syringe. This way the remaining liposome suspension in the vial remains sealed and clean. You can also use a pipette with a sterile tip to transfer, but better to perform this in a clean environment such as in a BSC hood.

Is the liposomes still good if it accidentally got frozen?

It depends. The liposome itself could actually survive upon freeze and thaw. So plain liposomes would most likely retain its original particle size and still good to use. The longer the lipid chains, the more stable the liposomes are. So pay extra attention for short chain DPPC liposomes and DOPC, POPC liposomes. Carefully check if the turbidity has changed and if aggregation has occurred. Check the particle size if you have a particle sizer.  

However, for liposomes containing a drug loading battery, such as the ammonium sulfate liposomes, the ammonium gradient could have been collapsed and may have lost its ability to load drugs. Perform a test loading with a known drug is recommended.

Things to AVOID with liposomes?

Liposomes prepared from lipids with saturated hydrocarbon chains are actually very sturdy. But there are a few things one need to pay attention to. 

-Do not mix with organic solvents, such as chloroform, methanol, ethanol, DMSO, ether and etc. chloroform will destroy the liposomes. Methanol or ethanol will soften or dissolve the membrane, depending on the amount used (up to 10w/v% is fine). 

-Do not add surfactant, unless you purposely doing so to lyse the liposomes.

-Do not heat close to or above the lipid main phase transition temperature, unless doing a drug loading, which requires incubation above the phase transition temperature. 

What are the plain liposomes for?

Plain liposomes are mostly used as placebo controls for in vitro/in vivo research.  There are several other useful applications. Certain lipophilic small molecules can be loaded into liposomes by simple incubation of the two parts at an elevated temperature. In this case the molecules are actually incorporated into the membranes, instead of encapsulated inside the liposomes.