Preparation of Liposomes from Milk Fat Globule Membrane Phospholipids Using a Microfluidizer

Abstract

The isolation of milk fat globule membrane (MFGM) material from buttermilk on a commercial scale has provided a new ingredient rich in phospholipids and sphingolipids. An MFGM-derived phospholipid fraction was used to produce liposomes via a high-pressure homogenizer (Microfluidizer). This technique does not require the use of solvents or detergents, and is suitable for use in the food industry. The liposome dispersion had an average hydrodynamic diameter of 95 nm, with a broad particle-size distribution. Increasing the number of passes through the Microfluidizer, increasing the pressure, or reducing the phospholipid concentration all resulted in a smaller average liposome diameter. Changing these variables did not have a significant effect on the polydispersity of the dispersion. Electron microscopy showed that the dispersions formed had a range of structures, including unilamellar, multilamellar, and multivesicular liposomes. The composition of the MFGM phospholipid material is different from that of the phospholipids usually used for liposome production in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. The MFGM-derived fraction comprises approximately 25% sphingomyelin, and the fatty acids are primarily saturated and monounsaturated. These differences are likely to affect the properties of the liposomes produced from the phospholipid material, and it may be possible to exploit the unique composition of the MFGM phospholipid fraction in the delivery of bioactive ingredients in functional foods.

Comparison of hydrophobic and hydrophilic encapsulation using liposomes prepared from milk fat globule-derived phospholipids and soya phospholipids

“…These fractions have been comprehensively characterized in earlier publications [26][27][28][29], and contained similar overall levels of phospholipids (72-74% polar lipids), low levels of nitrogen (1.1-2.4%) and negligible amounts of triglycerides or cholesterol. The primary difference between the fractions was the distribution of phospholipid classes, with the MFGM-derived fraction containing approximately equal amounts of phosphatidyl choline, phosphatidyl ethanolamine and sphingomyelin; while the soya fraction contained twice the amount of phosphatidyl choline and had no sphingomyelin.…”

“…The techniques used included particle size analysis (as outlined below) and various forms of microscopy to provide images of the liposomes (negative staining transmission electron microscopy, thin section transmission electron microscopy, cryo-field emission scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy [28,29]). …”

“…The average hydrodynamic diameter of the liposome dispersions was measured on a Zetasizer 4 (Malvern Instruments Ltd., Worcestershire, UK) using photon correlation spectrometry (PCS) as previously described [27][28][29]. Each sample was analyzed 3 times at 25…”

“…Milk fat globule membrane (MFGM) phospholipids have been shown to have a number of health benefits [4,5,8,9,15], and MFGM material may be successfully used to stabilize emulsions [3,20,21,32] and produce liposomes [29].…”

Effect of fermentation and dynamic high pressure microfluidization on dietary fibre of soybean residue

“…Dynamic high pressure microfluidization (DHPM) technology is an emerging homogenization technology which uses the combined forces of high-velocity impact, high-frequency vibration, instantaneous pressure drop, powerful shear, cavitation force and ultra-high pressures, up to 200 MPa, with a very short treatment time (less than 5 s) ). It has been applied for microbial reduction (Fantin et al 1996), preparation of mozzarella cheese (Tunick et al 2000), nanoemulsions (Jafari et al 2007) and liposomes (Thompson and Singh 2006) and improvement of whey protein and egg white protein (Iordache and Jelen 2003;Tu et al 2009). However, few reports exist on the effect of DHPM on dietary fibre.…”