Thermally Responsive Vesicles and Their Structural “Locking” through Polyelectrolyte Complex Formation

✍ Scribed by Yuting Li; Brad S. Lokitz; Charles L. McCormick

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 196 KB
• Volume: 118
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0044-8249
• DOI: 10.1002/ange.200602168

✦ Synopsis

Vesicles composed of lipid molecules play an important role in several biological functions including the storage and transportation of small molecules. [1] Vesicles formed from the self-assembly of amphiphilic block copolymers are often more durable than conventional liposomes and have recently been the focus of research. [2][3][4] Among them, the chemically crosslinked vesicles reported by Du et al. are quite stable under extreme conditions. [5] Methods for vesicle formation from amphiphilic block copolymers typically involve the use of an organic solvent such as tetrahydrofuran, N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF), or dioxane [2,3,6] and require further purification, which can be time-consuming and problematic. Furthermore, the self-assembly is highly dependent on the rate of dialysis or the addition of another solvent, which is difficult to control. Recently, stimuli-responsive (pH-sensitive) block copolymers that self-assemble into vesicles without the addition of organic solvents have been reported. [7, 8] Compared with pH-responsive materials, thermally responsive materials are advantageous for biological applications because of the stringent pH requirements in mammalian