International Summer School PROGRAM - Laboratoire d'Infochimie ...

Development of Vesicle-based Chemosensors: Directed Assembly
of Receptors on Vesicle Surfaces
Andreas Müller,
Benjamin Gruber, Burkhard König*
Institute of Organic Chemistry, University of Regensburg, Universitätsstraße 31,
93053 Regensburg, Germany
e-mail: burkhard.koenig@chemie.uni-regensburg.de
For the development of highly specific vesicle-based chemosensors, a well
defined two-dimensional assembly of different binding sites on the spherical vesicle
surface would be necessary. Based on previous works from our group, [1] we are
currently focusing on two different strategies for receptor structuring. Considering the
unpolar environment in the vesicle membrane, utilizing mutual hydrogen bonding
interactions of the embedded binding sites could pose the method of choice for that
goal (Figure 1a). A second approach relies on imprinting techniques of receptor-
modified vesicles. The required mobility of the binding sites on the vesicle surface is
intended to be achieved either by interactions with membrane-embedded hydrogen
bonding anchors (Figure 1b) or by reorganization of the membrane above the
vesicular transition temperature (Figure 1c).
Figure 1: Different approaches for receptor structuring on vesicle surfaces.
Here, we present preliminary results from our investigations towards a defined
receptor structuring on vesicle surfaces.
[1] B. Gruber, S. Stadlbauer, A. Späth, S. Weiss, M. Kalinina, B. König, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.
2010, 49, 7125–7128.