Capture and sensing of payloads in polymersomes

摘要

Polymersomes - vesicles formed by self-assembly of polymer amphiphiles - provide a good platform for targeted drug delivery and for creating complex (bio)catalytically active systems for research in synthetic biology and systems chemistry. To realise these applications requires both spatial control over the encapsulation components in the polymersomes and a means to determine where the components are in the polymersomes. Addressing these twin challenges, the Thordarson group at the University of New South Wales and collaborators recently reported the synthesis of a protein-polymer bioconjugate PNIPAM-6-amilFP497 composed of thermo-responsive poly(W-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) and a green-fluorescent protein variant (amilFP497) (Wong C.K., Laos AJ., Soeriyadi A.H., Wiedenmann J., Curmi P.M.G., Gooding J.J., Marquis C.P., Stenzel M.H., Thordarson P. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 5317-22).