Multifunctional Nanoparticles Self‐Assembled from Small Organic Building Blocks for Biomedicine

Abstract

Supramolecular self-assembly shows significant potential to construct responsive materials. By tailoring the structural parameters of organic building blocks, nanosystems can be fabricated, whose performance in catalysis, energy storage and conversion, and biomedicine has been explored. Since small organic building blocks are structurally simple, easily modified, and reproducible, they are frequently employed in supramolecular self-assembly and materials science. The dynamic and adaptive nature of self-assembled nanoarchitectures affords an enhanced sensitivity to the changes in environmental conditions, favoring their applications in controllable drug release and bioimaging. Here, recent significant research advancements of small-organic-molecule self-assembled nanoarchitectures toward biomedical applications are highlighted. Functionalized assemblies, mainly including vesicles, nanoparticles, and micelles are categorized according to their topological morphologies and functions. These nanoarchitectures with different topologies possess distinguishing advantages in biological applications, well incarnating the structure-property relationship. By presenting some important discoveries, three domains of these nanoarchitectures in biomedical research are covered, including biosensors, bioimaging, and controlled release/therapy. The strategies regarding how to design and characterize organic assemblies to exhibit biomedical applications are also discussed. Up-to-date research developments in the field are provided and research challenges to be overcome in future studies are revealed.

Translating a Low‐Molecular‐Weight MRI Probe Sensitive to Amino Acid Neurotransmitters into a PAMAM Dendrimer Conjugate: The Impact of Conjugation

“…Multicomponent supramolecular systems are increasingly used in many fields of medicine as they are capable of overcoming obstacles which are beyond the limits of the individual components . In this sense, the synergistic functionality of nanosized carriers and responsive MRI‐active components integrated as biocompatible conjugates, provides advantageous features over the single MR responsive entity .…”

“…Multicomponent supramolecular systems are increasingly used in many fields of medicine as they are capable of overcoming obstacles which are beyond the limits of the individual components. [1] In this sense, the synergistic functionality of nanosized carriers and responsive MRI-active components integrated as biocompatible conjugates, provides advantageous features over the single MR responsive entity. [2] The common approaches used to translate small-sized MRI contrast agents (CAs) into bioresponsive nanoparticles (NPs) are via the incorporation of a probe as a structural element, physical encapsulation into an internal void or conjugation via a covalent linkage.…”

Supramolecular Vesicles for Stimulus‐Responsive Drug Delivery

“…For example, Zumbuehl and co‐workers designed novel phospholipids with hydrogen‐bonding sites to form cube‐shaped vesicles on account of the highly oriented hydrogen bonds, disregarding the relatively higher surface tension . The aggregation of simple surfactants or polymeric amphiphiles follows the theory of molecular packing parameters, for example, P = v / la where v , l , and a stand for the volume of the hydrophobic part, the length of the hydrophobic part, and the volume of the hydrophilic head, respectively . Vesicle formation would be favorable when P values are in the range of 0.5–1.…”

Water‐Binding‐Mediated Gelation/Crystallization and Thermosensitive Superchirality

“…[2] Thek inetic process emphasizes on the utilization of ambient variables such as temperature,concentration, pressure,a nd solvent, while the thermodynamic method relies more on chemical structural design, such as conjugating specific groups to enhance/weaken noncovalent interactions. [2] Fort he bottom-up material fabrication, thermodynamic control that regards structural parameters and kinetic control depending on environmental parameters are intimately connected, [3][4][5] and to some extent, molecular structures determine the sensitivity of self-assemblies to environmental factors [6,7] such as solvents.…”