Polymers Formed from Self-Assembled Structures

Polymers Formed from Self-Assembled Structures... 

It is to be noted that not only water-soluble polymers can be used to complex DNA, amphiphilic polymers, which depending on the relative ratio of hydrophilic to hydrophobic block, can also form various self-assembled structures, from spherical micelles to vesicles (polymersomes). This review will be restricted to micelleforming polymers and will exclude polymersomes, which can both encapsulate (in their aqueous interior) and complex DNA [24, 25]. 

Figure 6 The template theophylline (T) is allowed to interact with the functional monomer methacrylic acid (M) to form a self-assembly. The monomers will interact with theophylline and will form a self-assembly complex mainly based on hydrogen bonding. This self-assembly and the positions of the functional monomers are then frozen and held in place by copolymerization with cross-linker ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (L). This leads to a rigid polymer scaffold that retains the spatial conformation and thus the specific binding cavity of the original template. After extraction of the template, a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) is obtained and the imprinted cavity is able to specifically rebind the template and other, even similar structures are excluded from the binding site cavity.

---