acute tubular necrosis which confirms the toxicity observed in the survival pattern of these animals the antifungal activity of spa 160 was maintained after encapsulation of the drug in liposomes irrespective of their lipid composition as reported earlier 11 the toxicity of f spa 222 to human rbcs was three times higher than f spa 160 which was later found to be due to the presence of sodium lauryl sulphate within th f spa 222 hence liposomes in this study could act as a means for avoiding the toxicity of ls present in spa 222 and allowing the intravenous administration of spa 160 although less toxic than f spa 222 f spa 160 was also toxic to rbcs but the toxic effects were prevented by its encapsulation in liposomes cholesterol containing liposomes were observed to be most protective as observed earlier 13 this may be due to a competition between or lesser exchange of cholesterol from red cell membranes to cholesterol containing spa 160 liposomes of all the lipid compositions tested only spa 160 in dopc liposomes was found to be toxic to rbcs the susceptibility of polyenes has been related to the overall state of membrane organization in particular to the overall conformation of membrane components 16 also the binding of polyenes has been reported to increase with the increase in content of pe 5 it has also been reported the cholesterol has a stabilizing effect on egg pe and that preference of polyenes for cholesterol is lower in the presence of pe 2.