A wide range of biorelevant applications, particularly in pharmaceutical formulations and the food and cosmetic industries, require the stabilization of two water-soluble blended components which would otherwise form incompatible biphasic mixtures. Such water-in-water emulsions can be achieved using Pickering stabilization, where two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials are particularly effective due to their high surface area. However, control over the shape and size of the 2D nanomaterials is challenging, where it has not yet been possible to examine chemically identical nanostructures with the same thickness but different surface areas to probe the size-effect on emulsion stabilization ability. Hence, the rationale design and realization of the full potential of Pickering water-in-water emulsion stabilization have not yet been achieved. Herein, we report for the first time 2D poly(lactide) platelets with tunable sizes (with varying coronal chemistry) and of uniform shape using a crystallization-driven self-assembly methodology. We have used this series of nanostructures to explore the effect of 2D platelet size and chemistry on the stabilization of a water-in-water emulsion of a poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)/dextran mixture. We have demonstrated that cationic, zwitterionic, and neutral large platelets (ca. 3.7 × 106 nm2) all attain smaller droplet sizes and more stable emulsions than their respective smaller platelets (ca. 1.2 × 105 nm2). This series of 2D platelets of controlled dimensions provides an excellent exemplar system for the investigation of the effect of just the surface area on the potential effectiveness in a particular application.

Clathrin forms diverse lattice and cage structures that change size and shape rapidly in response to the needs of eukaryotic cells during clathrin-mediated endocytosis and intracellular trafficking. We present the cryo-EM structure and molecular model of assembled porcine clathrin, providing new insights into interactions that stabilise key elements of the clathrin lattice, namely, between Users may view, print, copy, and download text and data-mine the content in such documents, for the purposes of academic research, subject always to the full Conditions of use:

We report an in silico method to predict monomers suitable for use in polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA). By calculating the dependence of LogP oct /surface area (SA) on the length of the growing polymer chain, the change in hydrophobicity during polymerization was determined. This allowed for evaluation of the capability of am onomer to polymerize to form self-assembled structures during chain extension. Using this method, we identified five new monomers for use in aqueous PISA via reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization, and confirmed that these all successfully underwent PISA to produce nanostructures of various morphologies.The results obtained using this method correlated well with and predicted the differences in morphology obtained from the PISA of blockc opolymers of similar molecular weight but different chemicalstructures.Thus,wepropose this method can be utilized for the discovery of new monomers for PISA and also the prediction of their self-assembly behavior.

Crystallisation-driven self-assembly (CDSA) has become an extremely valuable technique in the preparation of well-defined nanostructures using diblock copolymers. The use of triblock copolymers is considerably less well-known on account of more complex syntheses and assembly methods despite the functional advantages provided by a third block. Herein, we show the simple preparation of well-defined tuneable 1D and 2D structures based on poly(lactide) triblock copolymers of different block ratios synthesised by ring-opening polymerisation (ROP) and reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerisation, where a phase diagram based on a novel unimer solubility approach is proposed. Using a series of poly(L-lactide)-b-poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide) (PLLA-b-PDMA) diblock copolymers and PDMA-b-PLLA-b-PDMA triblock copolymers with different core/corona ratios, single solvent CDSA processes revealed that comparatively hydrophilic polymers were liable to achieve 2D platelets, while the less hydrophilic counterparts yield 'transition state' wide cylinders and pure 1D cylinders. The length of crystalline core block is also shown to play an important role in fixed corona/core ratio systems, where a longer core block is prone to form cylindrical structures due to a lack of overall solubility, whereas a shorter block forms platelets. Importantly, this approach reveals contrary results to conventional theories, which state that longer solvophilic blocks relative to the core-forming block should favour more curved core/corona interfaces. Our morphological transitions are shown in both di-and tri-block copolymer systems, showing the generalisation of these assembly methods towards promising methodologies for the rational design of PLLA-based nanocarriers in the biomedical realm.