What happens to negatively charged lipid vesicles upon interacting with polycation species?

Complexation of synthetic polycations with negative lipid vesicles as cell-mimetic species was studied. It was found that such interaction could be accompanied by lateral lipid segregation, highly accelerated transmembrane migration of lipid molecules (polycation-induced flip-flop), incorporation of adsorbed polycations into vesicular membrane as well as aggregation and disruption of vesicles. A polycation adsorbed on the surface of liquid vesicles due to electrostatic attraction could be completely removed from the membrane by increase in simple salt concentration or by recomplexation with polyanions. In contrast, adsorption of a polycation carrying pendant hydrophobic groups was irreversible apparently due to incorporation of these groups into the hydrophobic part of the vesicular membrane. The above mentioned phenomena were examined depending on the polycation structure, fraction of charged lipids in the membrane, vesicle phase state and ionic strength of solution.