Vol. 186, No. 3, 1992 August 14, 1992 BIOCHEMICAL AND BIOPHYSICAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS Pages 1546-1552 SOLUBILIZATION OF RIBOSOMES IN REVERSE MICELLES Giordano Palazzo ° and Pier Luigi Luisi* °Dipartimento di Chimica, Universita" di Bari * Institut fiir Polymere der ETH-Ziirich, Switzerland Received June i0, 1992 Summary: Pig liver ribosomes have been solubilized in reverse micelles constituted by bis (2-ethyl hexyl) sodium sulfosuccinate (AOT) in isooctane and 3.6% water, v:v. The micellar ribosomal solutions are transparent, show no significant scattering and permit direct spectroscopic observation of the ribosomes to be made. Ultraviolet absorption and circular dichroic spectra have been recorded and indicate that the ribosomes maintain in the micellar environment their structural integrity. Some possible applications of these micellar systems are discussed. ® 1992 Academic Press, Inc. Enzymes solubilized in reverse micelles have attracted the attention of a number of investigators over the last ten years. Enzymes are thought to be hosted in the water pool of the reverse micelles, and protected from the apolar solvent by a layer of water and surfactant molecules. The very large number of papers dealing with enzymes and proteins in reverse micelles reflects on the one hand the biotechnological expectations, and on the other the fascination for this type of biochemistry with a regulable enzyme microreactor (for reviews see Ref 1-3). One would think that nucleic acids in reverse micelles would have enjoyed similar popularity. It is not so, and actually there are only very few papers dealing with this subject (4-6). The preliminary results were however interesting: for example, it could be shown that high molecular 0006-291X/92 $4.00 Copyright © 1992 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 1546