title: Bilayer-forming synthetic lipids: drugs or carriers?
abstract: Since their introduction as bilayer-forming synthetic compounds in the eighties, dioctadecyldimethylammonium (DODA) and dihexadecylphosphate (DHP) salts have found many uses in strategic, applied areas. In particular, DODA chloride or bromide vesicles interacted with negatively charged prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells, yielding adsorption isotherms of high affinity for the cell surface, causing cell adhesion and flocculation, changing the cell surface charge from negative to positive, and causing loss of cell viability over DODA concentration ranges that depended on the cell type being tested. This work reviews data on DODA effects on cell viability (bacteria, fungus and cultured mammalian cells) to propose DODA salts as effective anti-microbial agents that exhibit differential cytotoxicity in vitro and, therefore, deserve to be investigated as potential drugs. The full utility of these inexpensive synthetic bilayers and bilayer fragments able to act as drugs themselves and, simultaneously, as drug, gene or vaccine carriers remains hitherto unexplored.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Bioquímica, Instituto de Química, Universidade de Sao Paulo, CP 26077, 05513-970 Sao Paulo SP, Brazil. mcribeir@quim.iq.usp.br
authors.forename: Ana Maria
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Carmona-Ribeiro
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology; D000935:Antifungal Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology; D004337:Drug Carriers / Q000737:chemistry*; D008051:Lipid Bilayers / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000494:pharmacology*; D010755:Organophosphates / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology; D000644:Quaternary Ammonium Compounds / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D000935:Antifungal Agents; D004337:Drug Carriers; D008051:Lipid Bilayers; D010755:Organophosphates; D000644:Quaternary Ammonium Compounds; C026584:dioctadecyltrimethylammonium; C002290:dicetylphosphate