Oligo-Urea with No Alkylene Unit Self-Assembles into Rod-Like Objects in Water
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Updated: Feb 2, 2026

Denaturing Urea Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis Urea PAGE
Published on: October 29, 2009
Shuaiyuan Han1, Erwan Nicol2, Frédérick Niepceron2
1Sorbonne Université, CNRS, IPCM, Equipe Chimie des Polymères, F-75005, Paris, France.
Abstract:
Long and rigid objects formed by self-assembly in water are useful as templates or for their rheological or biological properties. They are usually obtained by combining hydrogen bonding and strong hydrophobic interactions brought by an alkyl or alkylene chain. A simple access to well-defined rod-like assemblies in water is reported based on a penta-urea sticker directly connected to poly(ethylene oxide) side chains. These assemblies are characterized by an average length of several hundreds of nanometers and a monodisperse radius (4.5 nm) resulting from a reduced lateral aggregation of the stickers.
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