Место издания:Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers New York, USA
Первая страница:277
Последняя страница:289
Аннотация:Polyelectrolyte complexes (PEC) are the products of cooperative coupling reactions between two unlikely charged polyions of high charge density, in particular with ionogenic groups in each monomer unit of the chain. Of late there has been a widespread interest in research of competitive reactions in PEC’s solutions mimicking some important regulator processes in vivo accompanied by a transfer of charged biopolymers. Data obtained on studying of equilibrium, kinetics and mechanism of the competitive interpolyelectrolyte reactions are summarized in review1. These results lead to crucially new consideration of PEC as macromolecular compounds, permanent¬ly exchanging by polyions in water-salt solutions. The ability of PEC to combine high stability with the capacity to take part in the interpolyelectrolyte reactions ensures self-assembly of complex particles in the solutions. Perfect selectivity and high rate of the cooperative interpolyelectrolyte reactions endow PEC with sensitivity to external factors (pH, ionic strength, temperature, etc.) making them self-adjustment systems. Both formation of PEC and their transformation are accomplished by the method of trials and errors via polyions transfer until the equilibrium is achieved.
This view on polyelectrolyte complexes and their properties is fundamental and rather common. The principles of competitive binding and chain transfer ascertained for synthetic polyions can be extended to other families of complexes formed by polyelectrolyte and oppositely charged partner of different nature, for review see2. Flexible linear polyions with (ir)regular alternating of the charges along the chains, ionogenic polypeptides, branched polyelectrolytes, ionogenic dendrimers of different generations, globular proteins (enzymes, antibodies), conjugates of the proteins with polyelectrolytes, and nucleic acids could be components of the complexes.