Saturday, 31 August 2013

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Discover More About The Liposomes

By Kate McMahon


Liposomes are vesicles. They are man made. They are made up of a double layer of lipids. They serve very many functions. Some of them include administering food nutrients and also therapeutic drugs.

They have various constituents. The components are chiefly chemicals or biological molecules that are made out of biological substances. They involve phospholipids. Those phospholipids are filled with phosphatidylcholine. They might also contain surfactant compounds for instance phosphatidylethanolamine which is usually obtained from eggs.

Their surfaces are manufactured in such a means that they are capable of attaching to the tissues. These tissues may be healthy or even unhealthy. The substances which exist on their coverings that help them in attaching to the tissues are named ligands.

They are divided to different categories. The classes depend on the intricacy of the materials. They involve small unilamellar vesicles, cochleate vesicles and the multilamellar vesicles. Each class serves a particular role and contains a different structure.

Those vesicles were discovered in 1961 by a scientist called Alec Bangham; a known British hematologist. That discovery was achieved at Cambridge within the institute known as Babraham College. This title liposome has its origin in Greek. It simply designates a body which filled with fats.

The membrane of the vesicle is insoluble in water. This means that it does not allow substances that can dissolve in water to pass through it. However, substances that do not usually dissolve in water readily pass through the membrane. Such substances include fats or lipids.

The vesicles bear aqueous solutions at their cores. Aqueous solutions have salts dissolved in water. The salts usually are hydrophilic. Thus, those vesicles can deliver molecules which can mix with water. Also, they are able to deliver those that might not dissolve within water.

They simply release the molecules they carry. They achieve this because of the ligands found on their surfaces. The ligands help them to attach to the cells of target. After attaching, they then open up and release their components.

The vesicles aid in different sectors of medicine. They aid in delivering a broad range of substances, nutrients and molecules to body cells. They include nutritional supplements plus also drugs which are used to cure different illnesses. They are again used to release DNA products.

They further help for the control of several tumors. They might be used to convey drugs to the tumorous cells inside the body. This therefore broadens their usage within medicine.

Manufacturing them depends upon several factors. The factors include the largeness of the particles which are to be released, the solubility of materials, the number plus also the media to be used amongst other factors. It therefore means that making them is a hard and complicated process.

Researches are underway to develop immune resistant vesicles. This means vesicles that cannot be detected and destroyed by the immune system. This would increase their lifespan in the body hence increasing their effectiveness. Liposomes are therefore important biological man made substances. They help greatly in many fields of medicine and health in general.




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