Multicompartment dendrimicelles with binary, ternary and quaternary core composition.

Area of Science:

• Supramolecular chemistry
• Nanotechnology
• Materials science

Background:

• Hierarchically built-up multicompartment nanoaggregate systems are crucial for advanced materials and medicine.
• Dendrimers offer versatile building blocks for creating complex nanoscale architectures.
• Controlling the co-assembly of multiple components within a single nanostructure is a significant challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a versatile strategy for generating and characterizing complex coacervate-core micelles.
• To demonstrate the controlled co-assembly of up to four different dendrimeric subcomponents within a single micellar core.
• To investigate the influence of co-encapsulated components on Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) efficiency.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing four different dendrimeric subcomponents to form complex coacervate-core micelles.
• Employing FRET between fluorescein and rhodamine moieties on polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers to confirm synchronous encapsulation.
• Varying the ratio of functionalized dendrimers and co-assembling non-functionalized dendrimers to optimize FRET efficiency.
• Investigating the effect of co-encapsulated gold nanoparticles (G6-Au) and their subsequent removal on FRET efficiency.

Main Results:

• Successfully generated complex coacervate-core micelles with a hydrodynamic diameter of 50 nm, hosting approximately thirty 6th generation PAMAM dendrimers.
• Demonstrated synchronous encapsulation of different dendrimers within the micelle core using FRET with an efficiency of ~0.2.
• Identified optimal FRET efficiency at a minimum of 70% loading of functionalized dendrimers (G6-F and G6-R).
• Showed that co-encapsulated gold nanoparticles significantly reduce FRET efficiency, which can be restored by chemical etching.

Conclusions:

• Developed a versatile strategy for the controlled co-assembly of multiple dendrimeric subcomponents into complex coacervate-core micelles.
• Established a method to tune FRET efficiency within the micellar core by controlling component proximity and composition.
• Highlighted the potential for designing diverse nanoscale structures by incorporating various dendrimers or other molecules within the micellar core for applications in materials science and medicine.