Giant Polymer Compartments for Confined Reactions

Abstract

In nature, various specific reactions only occur in spatially controlled environments. Cell compartment and subcompartments act as the support required to preserve the bio-specificity and functionality of the biological content, by affording absolute segregation. Inspired by this natural perfect behavior, bottom-up approaches are the focus to develop artificial cell-like structures, detrimental for understanding relevant bioprocesses and interactions or to produce tailored solutions in the field of therapeutics and diagnostics. In this review, we discuss the benefits of constructing polymer-based single and multicompartments (capsules and giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs)), equipped with biomolecules as to mimic cells. In this respect, we outline key examples of how such structures have been designed from scratch, namely starting from the application-oriented selection and synthesis of the amphiphilic block copolymer. We then present the state-of-the-art techniques for assembling the supramolecular structure while permitting the encapsulation of active compounds and the incorporation of specific ion channels (peptides/proteins), essential to support in situ reactions, e.g., to replicate intracellular signaling cascades. Finally, we briefly discuss important features that these compartments offer and how they could be applied to engineer the next generation of microreactors, therapeutic solutions, and cell models.

Light-Triggered Polymersome-Based Anticancer Therapeutics Delivery

“…The solvent switch methods can be either a physical solvent exchange or a change in solvent conditions, such as pH or temperature, for both hydrophobic and hydrophilic cargoes. However, organic solvents often contribute to the degradation of sensitive molecules or are associated with toxicity and need to be removed from the solution generally via dialysis [ 160 ].…”

Membrane Manipulation of Giant Unilamellar Polymer Vesicles with a Temperature‐Responsive Polymer

“…Polymer GUVs are cell‐sized vesicles (10–100 μm) made of amphiphilic copolymers. These polymer vesicles, also known as polymersomes, are formed by the spontaneous self‐assembly of the copolymers, driven by the presence of a hydrophilic and a hydrophobic block in the same polymer chain [12, 13] . The resulting vesicular structure is characterized by a single bilayer, like that of natural lipids.…”

Current Perspectives on Synthetic Compartments for Biomedical Applications

“…The single emulsions cross a polymer monolayer at the water/oil interface and are coated by a second monolayer, resulting in a bilayered GUV. Microfluidic technology represents a step forward that has been recently used for high-throughput GUV formation with a narrow size distribution based on microdevice channel sizes and junction design [ 34 , 35 , 36 ]. Polymer-stabilized water–oil–water (w/o/w) double emulsions are used to form GUVs.…”