Polymersomes confined self-assembly: micellisation in 2D

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the controlled self-assembly of polymersomes with patterned domains by engineering interfacial tension, mimicking biological vesicle formation and enabling complex supramolecular structures.

Contribution

It introduces a synthetic approach to create patterned polymersomes with tailored topologies through chemical synthesis and interfacial tension control.

Findings

Polymersomes with engineered surface patterns

Controlled domain topology within vesicles

Potential for complex supramolecular design

Abstract

Biological systems exploit self-assembly to create complex structures whose arrangements are finely controlled from molecular to mesoscopic level. Herein we report an example of using fully synthetic systems that mimic two levels of self-assembly. We show the formation of vesicles using amphiphilic copolymers whose chemical nature is chosen to control both membrane formation and membrane-confined interactions. We report polymersomes with patterns that emerge by engineering interfacial tension within the polymersome surface. This allows the formation of domains whose topology is tailored by the chemical synthesis paving the avenue to complex supramolecular designs functionally similar to those found in viruses and trafficking vesicles.