Effect of extrusion pressure and lipid properties on the size and polydispersity of lipid vesicles

The production of vesicles, spherical shells formed from lipid bilayers, is an important aspect of their recent application to drug delivery technologies. One popular production method involves pushing a lipid suspension through cylindrical pores in polycarbonate membranes. However, the actual mechanism by which the polydisperse, multilamellar lipid suspension breaks up into a relatively monodisperse population of vesicles is not well understood. To learn about factors influencing this process, we have characterized vesicles produced under different extrusion parameters and from different lipids. We find that extruded vesicles are only produced above a certain threshold extrusion pressure and have sizes that depend on the extrusion pressure. The minimum pressure appears to be associated with the lysis tension of the lipid bilayer rather than any bending modulus of the system. The flow rate of equal concentration lipid solutions through the pores, after being corrected for the viscosity of water, is independent of lipid properties.