Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University , Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, United States.
State Key Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry and Physics, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Jilin 130022, People's Republic of China.
Biomacromolecules. 2017 Mar 13;18(3):649-673. doi: 10.1021/acs.biomac.6b01704. Epub 2017 Feb 17.
Polymersomes, the structural analogues of liposomes, are hollow structures enclosed by a bilayer membrane made from amphiphilic copolymers. Polymersomes have been proposed to mimic the structure and properties of cellular membranes and viral capsids. Excellent robustness and stability, chemical versatility for tunable membrane properties and surface functionalization make polymersomes attractive candidates for drug delivery, diagnostic imaging, nanoreactor vessels, and artificial organelles. In further biomimetic strategies, stimuli-responsive polymersomes that can recognize various external physical or internal biological environmental stimuli and conduct "on demand" release in dose-, spatial-, and temporal-controlled fashions have been widely developed. This Perspective focuses on recent advances in stimuli-responsive polymersomes and their potential biomedical applications. Representative examples of each stimulus, the advantages and limitations of different strategies, and the future opportunities and challenges are discussed.
聚合物囊泡是脂质体的结构类似物，是由两亲性共聚物构成的双层膜所封闭的中空结构。聚合物囊泡被提议模拟细胞膜和病毒衣壳的结构和特性。其具有极好的稳定性和机械强度、对膜性质和表面功能化进行可调谐的化学多功能性，因此成为药物传递、诊断成像、纳米反应容器和人工细胞器的有吸引力的候选物。在进一步的仿生策略中，已经广泛开发了能够识别各种外部物理或内部生物环境刺激并以剂量、空间和时间控制方式进行“按需”释放的响应性聚合物囊泡。本观点重点介绍了响应性聚合物囊泡的最新进展及其在生物医学中的潜在应用。讨论了每种刺激的代表性例子、不同策略的优点和局限性，以及未来的机遇和挑战。
