Vesicles from sucrose fatty acid esters

It has been confirmed, from observations with an electron microscope after staining negatively with aqueous uranyl acetate solutions and using a flourescent microscope, that sucrose fatty acid esters form closed vesicles. The range of particle size of the vesicle, consisting of chromatographically fractionated sucrose dilaurate, was apparently 70–700 nm in the longer diameter of individual vesicles based on the transmission electron microscopic (TEM) observation. The weight-average particle size was 424 nm as shown by means of the photon-correlation method. The amounts of 6-carboxyfluorescein trapped in the vesicles of sucrose fatty acid esters were determined, and it was ascertained that the volumes of the central water phase depended upon the acyl chain lengths of fatty acid residues. Further, the effect of the additives cholesterol and dicetyl phosphate (DCP) was examined. As an example, the vesicle of sucrose stearate had a central water phase of 1.7 one water/mol ester, and showed a slow release of 6-carboxyfluorescein from the central water phase after preparation of the vesicle.