Neutral and acid-adapted fatty acid vesicles of conjugated linoleic acid.

FAVs (fatty acid vesicles), originated from natural biomass and created available biointerface, have advantages of biocompatibility, low-cost, and easy self-assembly in aqueous solution due to their dynamic feature. However, there is no example of applying FAVs in contact with human body since they are inherently alkaline-adapted and pH windows for the FAV formation and application are very narrow and far away from the physiological pH range. In this work an attempt to turn the alkaline-adapted FAVs into neutral and acid-adapted ones was made by fabricating the amphiphile-hybrid vesicles of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) with a typical cosmetic emulsifier SDS (sodium dodecylsulfate) and/or a co-emulsifier DA (dodecyl alcohol). pH windows for the SDS- and/or DA-hybrid FAV formation of CLA were judged by using dynamic light scattering criterion, and confirmed by small-angle X-ray scattering and room temperature transmission electron microscopy. The experimental results show that with the aid of H-bonding and ion-dipole forces among molecules of CLA, SDS and DA within the hybrid vesicle walls that were identified by Fourier transform infrared analysis, much wider pH windows of 2.5-11.7 for the hybrid FAVs were obtained by expansion from 8.0-9.0 for FAV of CLA alone, which was composition-dependent and made the hybrid FAVs become neutral and acid-adapted.