作者：Geng, Y.; Wang, Z.; Lin, B.; Yang, H.*
关键字：amphiphilic copolymer
论文来源：期刊
发表时间：2016年
Encapsulation of inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) into the interfaces of amphiphilic vesicles is a challenging task. The traditional strategy is to use amphiphilic triblock copolymers, which possess two outer blocks for building the walls and coronas of vesicles, and one middle NP-binding block for localizing NPs at the vesicle interfaces. In this manuscript, we design and synthesize an amphiphilic diblock copolymer, PEG-SH-b-PS bearing a cysteine junction with one free pendant thiol group at the centre point between the hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) block and the hydrophobic polystyrene block. The amphiphilicity-driven self-assembly in aqueous solution of the pure linear diblock copolymers PEG-SH-b-PS and the corresponding amphiphilic PEG-SH-b-PS/gold NPs (GNPs) nanocomposites are examined. From TEM observations of the self-assembled samples containing the conjugated GNPs, it can be concluded that most of the GNPs are dispersed at the interfaces of the formed vesicles. In addition, near-infrared (NIR) absorbing copper monosul?de (CuS) NPs are also encapsulated into the PEG-SH-b-PS vesicles. Due to the photothermal heating effect of CuS NPs, the corresponding PEG-SH-b-PS/CuSNPs vesicles can disassemble and release the embedded cargos under NIR illumination, which endows this nanocomposite material with potential in biomedical applications, such as cancer imaging, photothermal therapy and drug delivery.