Abstract
Amphiphilic molecules—molecules that have both hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties—can self-assemble in water to form diverse structures such as micelles, vesicles and tubes1,2,3, and these nanostructures can be used for delivering drugs4,5, stabilizing membrane proteins6 or as nanoreactors7. We have previously shown that lipids can self-organize on the surface of single-walled carbon nanotubes into regular ring-shaped assemblies8. Here we show that these lipid assemblies can be polymerized and isolated from the nanotube template by application of an electric field. We also demonstrate that these assemblies are monodispersed, water-soluble, and can dissolve various hydrophobic rylene dyes, fullerenes and membrane proteins. The stability of these constructs and their diverse applications will be useful in the fields of cosmetics, medicine and material sciences.
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P.S. performed the TEM experiments. H.C. performed the protein solubilization experiments. S.M. and C.M. conceived and designed the experiments.
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S. R., P. S. and C. M. have filed a patent application on the process described in this work.
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Thauvin, C., Rickling, S., Schultz, P. et al. Carbon nanotubes as templates for polymerized lipid assemblies. Nature Nanotech 3, 743–748 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2008.318
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2008.318
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