Abstract
LIPID vesicles act as carriers of biologically active materials into animal cells1–3. A similar role might be envisaged for vesicles, for example, in the introduction of foreign DNA into plant protoplasts in genetic modification experiments4, or in the initiation of virus infection in plant protoplasts5. The amount of DNA which enters fed protoplasts is difficult to determine as is the multiplicity of virus which initiates infection in the poly-L-ornithine (PLO) (ref. 5) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) (ref. 6) procedures. To overcome these limitations of existing methods for the introduction of materials into protoplasts, I report here a vesicle system with the potential to fuse with the negatively charged plasmalemma7. Single membraned (‘hollow’) vesicles were considered more suitable to combine membrane instability with large ‘load’ volume, required to facilitate carriage of large molecules/virus particles into the protoplast and to release their content synchronously within.
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CASSELLS, A. Uptake of charged lipid vesicles by isolated tomato protoplasts. Nature 275, 760 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1038/275760a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/275760a0
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