Self-assembled architectures with multiple aqueous compartments

A vital organizational feature of living cells is that of compartmentalization. This allows cells to run concurrently incompatible metabolic processes and to regulate these processes by selective trans-membrane transport. Although strategies that effectively mimic cell function in simple architectur...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hoog, Hans-Peter M. de, Nallani, Madhavan, Tomczak, Nikodem
Other Authors: School of Materials Science & Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2013
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/96477
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/10349
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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Summary:A vital organizational feature of living cells is that of compartmentalization. This allows cells to run concurrently incompatible metabolic processes and to regulate these processes by selective trans-membrane transport. Although strategies that effectively mimic cell function in simple architectures have been researched extensively, soft matter systems with membranes that delineate distinct and multiple aqueous environments have only recently caught attention. We highlight a range of multi-compartmentalized soft matter systems including vesosomes, capsosomes, polymersomes, double emulsions, and their combinations, and demonstrate that the unique properties of the multi-compartmentalized architectures have the potential to add value to application areas such as drug-delivery and multi-enzyme biosynthesis.