School of Chemistry, Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD), University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
Nat Commun. 2019 Feb 4;10(1):582. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-08402-y.
In nature, self-assembly processes based on amphiphilic molecules play an integral part in the design of structures of higher order such as cells. Among them, amphiphilic glycoproteins or glycolipids take on a pivotal role due to their bioactivity. Here we show that sugars, in particular, fructose, are capable of directing the self-assembly of highly insoluble curcumin resulting in the formation of well-defined capsules based on non-covalent forces. Simply by mixing an aqueous solution of fructose and curcumin in an open vessel leads to the generation of capsules with sizes ranging between 100 and 150 nm independent of the initial concentrations used. Our results demonstrate that hydrogen bonding displayed by fructose can induce the self-assembly of hydrophobic molecules such as curcumin into well-ordered structures, and serving as a simple and virtually instantaneous way of making nanoparticles from curcumin in water with the potential for template polymerization and nanocarriers.
在自然界中，基于两亲分子的自组装过程在设计更高阶结构（如细胞）中起着不可或缺的作用。其中，由于其生物活性，两亲性糖蛋白或糖脂起着关键作用。在这里，我们表明糖，特别是果糖，能够指导高度不溶性姜黄素的自组装，从而基于非共价键形成基于非共价键形成的明确的胶囊。只需将果糖和姜黄素的水溶液在敞开的容器中混合，就可以生成尺寸在 100 至 150nm 之间的胶囊，而与使用的初始浓度无关。我们的结果表明，果糖所表现出的氢键可以诱导如姜黄素等疏水分子自组装成有序结构，并作为一种简单且几乎瞬间的方法，可在水中将姜黄素制成纳米颗粒，具有模板聚合和纳米载体的潜力。
