title: Aqueous Self-Assembly of Purely Hydrophilic Block Copolymers into Giant Vesicles.
abstract: Self-assembly of macromolecules is fundamental to life itself, and historically, these systems have been primitively mimicked by the development of amphiphilic systems, driven by the hydrophobic effect. Herein, we demonstrate that self-assembly of purely hydrophilic systems can be readily achieved with similar ease and success. We have synthesized double hydrophilic block copolymers from polysaccharides and poly(ethylene oxide) or poly(sarcosine) to yield high molar mass diblock copolymers through oxime chemistry. These hydrophilic materials can easily assemble into nanosized (<500 nm) and microsized (>5 μm) polymeric vesicles depending on concentration and diblock composition. Because of the solely hydrophilic nature of these materials, we expect them to be extraordinarily water permeable systems that would be well suited for use as cellular mimics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Colloid Chemistry, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Research Campus Golm, 14424 Potsdam (Germany). sarah.brosnan@mpikg.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Sarah M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Brosnan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Chemistry, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 24-25, 14476 Potsdam (Germany). schlaad@uni-potsdam.de.
authors.forename: Helmut
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schlaad
authors.affiliation: Department of Colloid Chemistry, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Research Campus Golm, 14424 Potsdam (Germany).
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Antonietti
keywords: block copolymers; polymersomes; polysaccharides; self-assembly; vesicles