@article{BrosnanSchlaadAntonietti2015, author = {Brosnan, Sarah M. and Schlaad, Helmut and Antonietti, Markus}, title = {Aqueous Self-Assembly of Purely Hydrophilic Block Copolymers into Giant Vesicles}, series = {Angewandte Chemie : a journal of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker ; International edition}, volume = {54}, journal = {Angewandte Chemie : a journal of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker ; International edition}, number = {33}, publisher = {Wiley-VCH}, address = {Weinheim}, issn = {1433-7851}, doi = {10.1002/anie.201502100}, pages = {9715 -- 9718}, year = {2015}, 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 (<500nm) and microsized (>5m) 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.}, language = {en} } @article{BourgatTierschKoetzetal.2020, author = {Bourgat, Yannick and Tiersch, Brigitte and Koetz, Joachim and Menzel, Henning}, title = {Enzyme degradable polymersomes from chitosan-g-[poly-l-lysine-block-epsilon-caprolactone] copolymer}, series = {Macromolecular bioscience}, volume = {21}, journal = {Macromolecular bioscience}, number = {1}, publisher = {Wiley-VCH}, address = {Weinheim}, issn = {1616-5187}, doi = {10.1002/mabi.202000259}, pages = {1 -- 9}, year = {2020}, abstract = {The scope of this study includes the synthesis of chitosan-g-[peptide-poly-epsilon-caprolactone] and its self-assembly into polymeric vesicles employing the solvent shift method. In this way, well-defined core-shell structures suitable for encapsulation of drugs are generated. The hydrophobic polycaprolactone side-chain and the hydrophilic chitosan backbone are linked via an enzyme-cleavable peptide. The synthetic route involves the functionalization of chitosan with maleimide groups and the preparation of polycaprolactone with alkyne end-groups. A peptide functionalized with a thiol group on one side and an azide group on the other side is prepared. Thiol-ene click-chemistry and azide-alkyne Huisgen cycloaddition are then used to link the chitosan and poly-epsilon-caprolactone chains, respectively, with this peptide. For a preliminary study, poly-l-lysin is a readily available and cleavable peptide that is introduced to investigate the feasibility of the system. The size and shape of the polymersomes are studied by dynamic light scattering and cryo-scanning electron microscopy. Furthermore, degradability is studied by incubating the polymersomes with two enzymes, trypsin and chitosanase. A dispersion of polymersomes is used to coat titanium plates and to further test the stability against enzymatic degradation.}, language = {en} }