Polymersomes as Biological Membranes
Stijn van Dongen
In some respects, polymersomes are quite similar to liposomes. Both of them consist of a bilayer that compartmentalises an internal cavity from its surrounding. The main difference between them is the higher stability of a copolymer bilayer compared to most lipid bilayers. It is widely known that lipid bilayers fulfill many important roles in biology. Two of these are the focus of this research.
Passage through Polymersome Membranes
Biological membranes are permeable to specific compounds. Different kinds of membranes can have different grades of permeability. The same holds through for polymersome membranes, although not much is known about this. This research will investigate the characteristics of polystyrene-based membranes and how these properties relate to permeability. Attention will be paid to, for example, the charge, hydrophobicity, or bulkiness of analytes and how this influences their diffusion into and out of the polymersome. The results of these investigations will be of great benefit for so-called "artificial cell" applications of polymersomes.
Passage of Polymersomes through Membranes
Some biological membranes can fuse with others of their kind, or pass through others still. This research will attempt to mimick these functions of lipid membranes with block-copolymer bilayers. Special attention will be paid to the passage of polymersomes through actual biological membranes, using a wide variety of techniques ranging from transformation to transfection and from microinjection to active biological transport via polymersome surface functionalisation.
Two student projects are available:
