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Download fileShape Transformations of Vesicles Self-Assembled from Amphiphilic Hyperbranched Multiarm Copolymers via Simulation
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posted on 2018-08-09, 00:00 authored by Haina Tan, Shanlong Li, Ke Li, Chunyang Yu, Zhongyuan Lu, Yongfeng ZhouThe
understanding of shape transformations of vesicles is of fundamental
importance in biological and clinical sciences. Hyperbranched polymer
vesicles (branched polymersomes) are newly emerging polymer vesicles
with special structure and property. They have also been regarded
as a good model for biomembranes. However, the shape transformations
of hyperbranched polymer vesicles have not been studied from either
an experimental or theoretical level. Herein, the shape transformations
of vesicles self-assembled from amphiphilic hyperbranched multiarm
copolymers (HMCs) in response to the interaction parameters between
the hydrophobic core and hydrophilic arms and the polymer concentrations
are investigated carefully through dissipative particle dynamics (DPD)
simulations. In the morphological phase diagram, two types of vesicles
are obtained: one type corresponds to vesicles without holes formed
at low concentrations including unilamellar vesicles, double-lamellar
vesicles, discocyte-shaped vesicles, and tubular vesicles, and the
other type corresponds to vesicles with holes formed at high concentrations
including stomatocyte-shaped vesicles, toroidal vesicles, genus-3
(G-3) toroidal vesicles with three holes, and genus-4 (G-4) toroidal
vesicles with four holes. In addition, both the self-assembly mechanisms
and the dynamics for the formation of these vesicles have been systematically
studied. The current work will offer theoretical support for fabricating
novel vesicles with various shapes from hyperbranched polymers.