The modular synthesis of 7 libraries containing 51 self-assembling amphiphilic Janus dendrimers with the monosaccharides D-mannose and D-galactose and the disaccharide D-lactose in their hydrophilic part is reported. These unprecedented sugar-containing dendrimers are named amphiphilic Janus glycodendrimers. Their self-assembly by simple injection of THF or ethanol solution into water or buffer and by hydration was analyzed by a combination of methods including dynamic light scattering, confocal microscopy, cryogenic transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform analysis, and micropipet-aspiration experiments to assess mechanical properties. These libraries revealed a diversity of hard and soft assemblies, including unilamellar spherical, polygonal, and tubular vesicles denoted glycodendrimersomes, aggregates of Janus glycodendrimers and rodlike micelles named glycodendrimer aggregates and glycodendrimermicelles, cubosomes denoted glycodendrimercubosomes, and solid lamellae. These assemblies are stable over time in water and in buffer, exhibit narrow molecular-weight distribution, and display dimensions that are programmable by the concentration of the solution from which they are injected. This study elaborated the molecular principles leading to single-type soft glycodendrimersomes assembled from amphiphilic Janus glycodendrimers. The multivalency of glycodendrimersomes with different sizes and their ligand bioactivity were demonstrated by selective agglutination with a diversity of sugar-binding protein receptors such as the plant lectins concanavalin A and the highly toxic mistletoe Viscum album L. agglutinin, the bacterial lectin PA-IL from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and, of special biomedical relevance, human adhesion/growth-regulatory galectin-3 and galectin-4. These results demonstrated the candidacy of glycodendrimersomes as new mimics of biological membranes with programmable glycan ligand presentations, as supramolecular lectin blockers, vaccines, and targeted delivery devices.

Poly(2-alkyl-2-oxazoline)s can be regarded as pseudo-peptides or bioinspired polymers, which are available through living/controlled cationic polymerization and polymer ("click") modification procedures. Materials and solution properties may be adjusted via the nature of the side chain (hydrophilic-hydrophobic, chiral, bio-functional, etc.), opening the way to stimulus-responsive materials and complex colloidal structures in aqueous environments. Herein, we give an overview over the macromolecular engineering of polyoxazolines, including the synthesis of biohybrids, and the "smart"/bioinspired aggregation behavior in solution.

Dendrimersomes are stable, monodisperse unilamellar vesicles self-assembled in water from amphiphilic Janus dendrimers. Their size, stability, and membrane structure are determined by the chemical structure of Janus dendrimer and the method of self-assembly. Comparative analysis of the periodic arrays in bulk and dendrimersomes assembled by ethanol injection in water of 11 libraries containing 108 Janus dendrimers is reported. Analysis in bulk and in water was performed by differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffraction, dynamic light scattering, and cryo-TEM. An inverse proportionality between size, stability, mechanical properties of dendrimersomes, and thickness of their membrane was discovered. This dependence was explained by the tendency of alkyl chains forming the hydrophobic part of the dendrimersome to produce the same local packing density regardless of the branching pattern from the hydrophobic part of the dendrimer. For the same hydrophobic alkyl chain length, the largest, toughest, and most stable dendrimersomes are those with the thinnest membrane that results from the interdigitation of the alkyl groups of the Janus dendrimer. A simplified spherical-shell model of the dendrimersome was used to demonstrate the direct correlation between the concentration of Janus dendrimer in water, c, and the size of self-assembled dendrimersome. This concentration-size dependence demonstrates that the mass of the vesicle membrane is proportional with c. A methodology to predict the size of the dendrimersome based on this correlation was developed. This methodology explains the inverse proportionality between the size of dendrimersome and its membrane thickness, and provides a good agreement between the experimental and predicted size of dendrimersome.

A constitutional isomeric library synthesized by a modular approach has been used to discover six amphiphilic Janus dendrimer primary structures, which self-assemble into uniform onion-like vesicles with predictable dimensions and number of internal bilayers. These vesicles, denoted onion-like dendrimersomes, are assembled by simple injection of a solution of Janus dendrimer in a water-miscible solvent into water or buffer. These dendrimersomes provide mimics of double-bilayer and multibilayer biological membranes with dimensions and number of bilayers predicted by the Janus compound concentration in water. The simple injection method of preparation is accessible without any special equipment, generating uniform vesicles, and thus provides a promising tool for fundamental studies as well as technological applications in nanomedicine and other fields.synthetic membranes | biomembrane mimics | multibilayer vesicles M ost living organisms contain single-bilayer membranes composed of lipids, glycolipids, cholesterol, transmembrane proteins, and glycoproteins (1). Gram-negative bacteria (2, 3) and the cell nucleus (4), however, exhibit a strikingly special envelope that consists of a concentric double-bilayer membrane. More complex membranes are also encountered in cells and their various organelles, such as multivesicular structures of eukaryotic cells (5) and endosomes (6), and multibilayer structures of endoplasmic reticulum (7,8), myelin (9, 10), and multilamellar bodies (11,12). This diversity of biological membranes inspired corresponding biological mimics. Liposomes ( Fig. 1) self-assembled from phospholipids are the first mimics of singlebilayer biological membranes (13-16), but they are polydisperse, unstable, and permeable (14). Stealth liposomes coassembled from phospholipids, cholesterol, and phospholipids conjugated with poly(ethylene glycol) exhibit improved stability, permeability, and mechanical properties (17)(18)(19)(20). Polymersomes (21-24) assembled from amphiphilic block copolymers exhibit better mechanical properties and permeability, but are not always biocompatible and are polydisperse. Dendrimersomes (25-28) self-assembled from amphiphilic Janus dendrimers and minidendrimers (26-28) have also been elaborated to mimic single-bilayer biological membranes. Amphiphilic Janus dendrimers take advantage of multivalency both in their hydrophobic and hydrophilic parts (23,(29)(30)(31)(32). Dendrimersomes are assembled by simple injection (33) of a solution of an amphiphilic Janus dendrimer (26) in a water-soluble solvent into water or buffer and produce uniform (34), impermeable, and stable vesicles with excellent mechanical properties. In addition, their size and properties can be predicted by their primary structure (27). Amphiphilic Janus glycodendrimers self-assemble into glycodendrimersomes that mimic the glycan ligands of biological membranes (35). They have been demonstrated to be bioactive toward biomedically relevant bacterial, plant, and human lectins, and could have numerous applications i...

An accelerated modular synthesis of six libraries containing 29 amphiphilic Janus dendrimers, employed to discover and predict functions via primary structures, is reported. These dendrimers were constructed from a single hydrophobic and a single hydrophilic dendron, interconnected with l-Ala to form two constitutional isomeric libraries, with Gly to produce one library, and with l-propanediol ester to generate two additional constitutional isomeric libraries. They are denoted "single-single" amphiphilic Janus dendrimers. Assemblies obtained by injection of their ethanol solution into water were analyzed by dynamic light scattering and cryogenic transmission electron microscopy. A diversity of complex structures including soft and hard dendrimersomes, cubosomes, solid lamellae, and rod-like micelles were obtained in water. It was discovered that the "single-single" amphiphilic Janus dendrimers containing three triethylene glycol groups in the hydrophilic dendron favored the formation of dendrimersomes. Assemblies in bulk analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry and powder X-ray diffraction revealed that the amphiphilic Janus dendrimers with melting point or glass transition below room temperature self-assemble into soft dendrimersomes in water, while those with higher temperature transitions produce hard assemblies. In the range of concentrations where their size distribution is narrow, the diameter of the dendrimersomes is predictable by the d-spacing of their assemblies in bulk. These results suggested the synthesis of Library 6 containing two simpler constitutional isomeric benzyl ester based amphiphilic Janus dendrimers that self-assemble in water into soft dendrimersomes and multidendrimersome dendrimersomes with predictable dimensions.