Control of vesicle membrane permeability with catalytic particles

Abstract

Giant polymer vesicles which have membrane-embedded catalytically active manganese oxide particles are made using dropletbased microfluidics. It is demonstrated that these colloidal particles can regulate the membrane permeability of the polymersomes upon their exposure to, and catalytic reaction with, small amounts of dissolved hydrogen peroxide. ; Web: www.bonlab.info; Tel: +44 (0)2476 574009 † Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See

Textured Microcapsules through Crystallization

“…A flow-focusing microfluidic device (Figure S6) is used to prepare stabilized oil-in-water droplets of low size dispersity (Figure 1a,b). A 5 w/w % PVA (M w 67 kg mol −1 ) solution is used as an aqueous phase 43 to stabilize droplets in solution as well as increase the continuous phase viscosity to aid droplet generation. The dispersed phase of DCM/dodecane/DBCC meets this aqueous phase at the flow-focusing junction to produce oil-in-water droplets.…”

Microfluidics: A Tool to Control the Size and Composition of Particles

“…There is only a small number of block-copolymers that have thus onstrate that it is possible to functionalize vesicles with nanoparticles that would be too large to self-assemble into vesicle membranes. [83] However, protocols that offer a close control over the concentration of incorporated nanoparticles remain to be established.…”

“…[82] For example, liposomes could be made responsive to magnetic fields by incorporating iron oxide nanoparticles into their membranes. [82] Similarly, nonresponsive polymersomes could be made responsive to oxidative environments by incorporating manganese oxide nanoparticles into their membranes, [83] and thermoresponsive polymersomes could be made light responsive by incorporating gold nanoparticles into their membranes, as shown in Fig. 3e.…”

Polymer Vesicles for Antimicrobial Applications

“…The most studied building blocks of polymer vesicles are synthetic block copolymers with hydrophilic segments which form the coronas, and hydrophobic segments which form the membrane in a bilayer or interdigitated manner [ 17 , 24 , 25 ]. The manipulation of the membrane structure and the physiochemical property of the coronas of polymer vesicles is the focus of current studies [ 26 , 27 ]. For instance, the former determines the permeability of the membrane, in other words, regulating the load and on demand release of the cargoes [ 28 , 29 ], while the latter influences many factors in biomedical applications such as circulation time, cell toxicity, immune response, and so forth [ 27 , 30 , 31 ].…”