Asymmetrical Polymer Vesicles for Drug delivery and Other Applications.

Yi Zhao

doi:10.3389/fphar.2017.00374

Abstract

Scientists have been attracted by polymersomes as versatile drug delivery systems since the last two decades. Polymersomes have the potential to be versatile drug delivery systems because of their tunable membrane formulations, stabilities in vivo, various physicochemical properties, controlled release mechanisms, targeting abilities, and capacities to encapsulate a wide range of drugs and other molecules. Asymmetrical polymersomes are nano- to micro-sized polymeric capsules with asymmetrical membranes, which means, they have different outer and inner coronas so that they can exhibit better endocytosis rate and endosomal escape ability than other polymeric systems with symmetrical membranes. Hence, asymmetrical polymersomes are highly promising as self-assembled nano-delivery systems in the future for in vivo therapeutics delivery and diagnostic imaging applications. In this review, we prepared a summary about recent research progresses of asymmetrical polymersomes in the following aspects: synthesis, preparation, applications in drug delivery and others.

Highlights

Polymersomes, which can be called polymeric vesicles, have attracted scientists’ interests in recent years
Cai et al (2011) prepared asymmetric polymersomes based on poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(ethylene oxide-stat-butylene oxide)-b-poly(isoprene) (E-BE-I) ABC triblock copolymer, which presented the temperature dependent property and the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) was 25◦C
Du et al investigated endosomal pH-sensitive degradable asymmetric polymersomes constructed by ABC triblock poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(trimethoxybenzylidene trisethane methacrylate)-b-poly(acrylic acid) (PEG-PTTMA-PAA)

Summary

Introduction

Polymersomes, which can be called polymeric vesicles, have attracted scientists’ interests in recent years. The properties of the diblock or triblock copolymers can determine the types and applications of the asymmetrical polymersomes by controlling the structures, compositions and molecular weights (Li et al, 2015). The resulting copolymer will self-assemble to form polymersomes and have the capacity to load hydrophilic drugs.

Results

Conclusion