Effect of Unsaturation on the Stability of C18 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Vesicles Suspension in Aqueous Solution

Degree of unsaturation in fatty acid molecules plays an important role in the formation of vesicles. Vesicle formation from C18 fatty acids with different amount of double bonds such as oleic acid, linoleic acid and linolenic acid with the incorporation of 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycerol-3-phosphoethanolamine-N-[methoxy(polyethylene glycol)-2000] (DPPE-PEG2000) have been examined by TEM. Critical vesicular concentrations (CVC) of the vesicle suspension are determined by turbidity and surface tension methods. The CVC of fatty acids increases when the amount of unsaturation in the alkyl chain increases. On the other hand, stability of vesicle suspension has been examined by using particle size and zeta potential at 30 C. There was a dramatic decrease in particle size measurement from mono-unsaturation to tri-unsaturation which could be due to the effect of fluidity in the membrane bilayer caused by different degree of unsaturation. The values of zeta potential for vesicles that were formed without the incorporation of DPPE-PEG2000 were in the range of ‒70 mV to ‒100 mV. It has been observed that the incorporation of DPPEPEG2000 to the vesicle reduces the magnitude of zeta potential. However, this phenomenon does not obviously seen in fatty acid vesicles formed by linoleate-linoleic acid and linolenate-linolenic acid. We therefore conclude that the addition of DPPE-PEG2000 does not effectively improve the stability of the linoleate-linoleic acid and linolenatelinolenic acid vesicle at pH 9.0 after the evaluation of their particle size and zeta potential over a period of 30 days. Although the vesicles formed were not stable for more than 10 days, they have displayed the potential in encapsulating the active ingredients such as vitamin E and calcein. The results show that the loading efficiencies of vitamin E are of encouraging value.