ИСТИНА

Vesicular interpolyelectrolyte complexes (IPECs), IPECsomes, resulting from the electrostatic interaction of a cationic bis-hydrophilic miktoarm star-shaped polymer (a star-shaped copolymer comprising several arms of exhaustively quaternized poly(N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) and one arm of poly(ethylene oxide)) with anionic linear homopolyelectrolytes (poly(sodium styrenesulfonate), poly(sodium acrylate)) in aqueous media were examined. They were obtained by simple mixing aqueous solutions of the oppositely charged polymeric components as a result of matched macromolecular co- and self-assembly processes provided that cationic charge of the miktoarm star is sufficiently (by more than 50%) compensated by chains of the linear anionic counterpart. At 1:1 charge-to-charge ratio between the oppositely charged polymeric components, the IPECsomes are considered to bulit up from an insoluble IPEC wall, which is sandwiched between two (inner and outer) poly(ethylene oxide) brushes granting to the whole macromolecular assembly colloidal stability in aqueous media. Remarkably, the star-shaped architecture (topology) of one of the polymeric components involved in the interpolyelectrolyte complexation forces the morphology of the formed IPECs into a vesicular one, which is beneficial compared to other morphologies for the considered system. Using poly(sodium styrenesulfonate) as a linear counterpart to be complexed with the oppositely charged miktoarm star leads to IPECsomes demonstrating no (or rather slight) response to variations in pH or ionic strength of the surrounding medium while stimuli-responsive IPECsomes (sensitive to changes of pH or ionic strength) were obtained with poly(sodium acrylate). The obtained macromolecular complexes of vesicular type, which is rarely observed for IPECs, are of considerable interest as nanocontainers and nanocarriers and may be highly in-demand for such applications for drug delivery, diagnostics, etc.