| Institution: | 1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001 China
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules, State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai, 200240 China;2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules, State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai, 200240 China;3. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001 China |
| Abstract: | Engineering synthetic materials that mimic the complex rhythmic oscillatory behavior of living cells is a fundamental challenge in science and technology. Up to now, the reported synthetic model system still cannot compete with nature in oscillatory modes and amplitudes. Presented here is a novel alternating copolymer vesicle that exhibits drastic and multimode shape oscillations in real time, which are controlled by polymer concentrations and driven by the Belousov—Zhabotinsky oscillatory reaction, including swelling/deswelling, twisting/detwisting, stretching/shrinking, fusion/fission, and multiple division. Some of them, especially the fission oscillation, have not been observed before. In addition, the oscillation magnitude with regard to diameter is much larger than that of previously reported self-oscillating vesicles. Such a self-oscillating vesicle transformer would extend the complexity and capacity of membrane deformations in synthetic systems, approaching those of natural cells. |
