TABLE 1.

Summary of the physical characteristics considered for the lipid vesicles prepared with a variable sterol mol fraction

	Sterol mol fraction
	0	0.075	0.10	0.15	0.30
AS (nm2)	0.63	0.59	0.58	0.56	0.48
μ*	92,074	97,901	100,011	104,516	120,847

^*The calculation of the average number of lipids in a single liposome, μ, was made assuming a homogeneous population of spherical lipid vesicles with an external diameter of 100 nm and a bilayer thickness of 4.0 nm. The condensing effect of cholesterol was taken into account by considering a variable average cross-sectional molecular area, A_S (Smaby et al., 1997). It was further assumed that ergosterol had a similar effect to cholesterol on the physical properties of the lipid bilayers.