A Facile Synthesis of Discoidal Lipid Bilayer Nanostructure by Association of a Cationic Amphiphilic Polyelectrolyte

This study presents a facile way synthesizing disc-like lipid bilyaer nanostructures with a cationic amphiphilic polyelectrolyte. The cationic amphiphilic polyelectrolyte was in a form of partially quarternized copolymer and was synthesized with 2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate and stearyl methacrylate. At some concentration ranges of the polymer, the addition of the polymer to lipid components during the preparation of bilayer nanostructures resulted in discs with a fairly high yield (~99%). The mechanism for the formation of the nanostructures was discussed based on the physical properties of these nanostructures and by comparing the nanostructures obtained with an anionic amphiphilic polyelectrolyte.This work is supported by the startup grant from Hanyang University (201100000000226)