Barbero Nadia, Magistris Claudio, Quagliotto Pierluigi, Bonandini Luca, Barolo Claudia, Buscaino Roberto, Compari Carlotta, Contardi Laura, Fisicaro Emilia, Viscardi Guido
Dipartimento di Chimica, Interdepartmental "Nanostructured Surfaces and Interfaces", NIS Centre-Università di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 7, 10125 Torino (Italy).
Dipartimento di Farmacia-Università di Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 27A, 43124 Parma (Italy).
Chempluschem. 2015 Jun;80(6):952-962. doi: 10.1002/cplu.201500007. Epub 2015 Feb 27.
Pyridinium gemini surfactants with hexadecyl chains linked to nitrogen atoms and a tuned aliphatic spacer that bridges the two pyridinium polar heads in 2,2'-positions have been synthesized and characterized. A multitechnique approach allowed us to study the aggregation behavior, using conductivity, surface tension, and fluorescence. Graphs of the specific conductivity (κ) versus the surfactant molar concentration (C), and graphs of the molar conductivity (Λ) versus C suggest pre-aggregation phenomena of these amphiphiles at very low concentration. The trends of A as a function of the spacer length confirm the hypothesis of a conformational change of the molecule with four methylene groups as spacer owing to stacking interactions between the two pyridinium rings mediated by the counterion. Moreover, the trends of A and counterion binding (β) suggest that the spacer must be longer than eight carbon atoms to fold efficiently toward the micellar core. The opportunity to tune the surfactant structure and aggregation properties make those surfactants-particularly the long-chain ones for which the DNA complexing ability was shown by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging-desirable candidates for gene-delivery experiments.
已合成并表征了具有与氮原子相连的十六烷基链以及在2,2'-位桥接两个吡啶鎓极性头的经过调节的脂肪族间隔基的吡啶鎓双子表面活性剂。一种多技术方法使我们能够利用电导率、表面张力和荧光来研究其聚集行为。比电导率(κ)对表面活性剂摩尔浓度(C)的曲线图以及摩尔电导率(Λ)对C的曲线图表明,这些两亲物在非常低的浓度下存在预聚集现象。作为间隔基长度函数的A的趋势证实了以四个亚甲基作为间隔基的分子由于抗衡离子介导的两个吡啶鎓环之间的堆积相互作用而发生构象变化的假设。此外,A和抗衡离子结合(β)的趋势表明,间隔基必须长于八个碳原子才能有效地向胶束核折叠。调节表面活性剂结构和聚集性质的机会使得这些表面活性剂——特别是通过原子力显微镜(AFM)成像显示出DNA络合能力的长链表面活性剂——成为基因传递实验的理想候选物。