Wong Chin Ken, Lai Rebecca Y, Stenzel Martina H
School of Chemistry, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
Nat Commun. 2023 Oct 6;14(1):6237. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-41883-6.
Polymersomes are polymeric analogues of liposomes with exceptional physical and chemical properties. Despite being dubbed as next-generation vesicles since their inception nearly three decades ago, polymersomes have yet to experience translation into the clinical or industrial settings. This is due to a lack of reliable methods to upscale production without compromising control over polymersome properties. Herein we report a continuous flow methodology capable of producing near-monodisperse polymersomes at scale (≥3 g/h) with the possibility of performing downstream polymersome manipulation. Unlike conventional polymersomes, our polymersomes exhibit metastability under ambient conditions, persisting for a lifetime of ca. 7 days, during which polymersome growth occurs until a dynamic equilibrium state is reached. We demonstrate how this metastable state is key to the implementation of downstream processes to manipulate polymersome size and/or shape in the same continuous stream. The methodology operates in a plug-and-play fashion and is applicable to various block copolymers.
聚合物囊泡是脂质体的聚合物类似物，具有卓越的物理和化学性质。尽管自近三十年前问世以来就被称为下一代囊泡，但聚合物囊泡尚未实现向临床或工业领域的转化。这是因为缺乏可靠的方法来扩大生产规模，同时又不影响对聚合物囊泡性质的控制。在此，我们报告一种连续流方法，该方法能够大规模（≥3克/小时）生产近单分散的聚合物囊泡，并有可能进行下游聚合物囊泡操作。与传统的聚合物囊泡不同，我们的聚合物囊泡在环境条件下表现出亚稳性，可持续约7天，在此期间聚合物囊泡不断生长，直至达到动态平衡状态。我们展示了这种亚稳状态如何成为在同一连续流中实施下游工艺以操纵聚合物囊泡大小和/或形状的关键。该方法以即插即用的方式运行，适用于各种嵌段共聚物。
