Facilitation effect of oligonucleotide on vesicle formation from single‐chained cationic surfactant—Dependences of oligonucleotide sequence and size and surfactant structure

The interaction between DNA and surfactant has both biological and technological significances. Recently, we reported for the first time that oligo d(C)₂₅ can induce single‐chained cationic surfactant molecules to aggregate into vesicles. In this article, we studied systematically the formation of vesicles from traditional single‐chained cationic surfactant molecules in the presence of a series of oligonucleotides and found that the facilitation efficiency of oligonucleotide on vesicle formation depends on its size and base composition. Oligo d(T)_n cannot induce vesicle formation, whereas the other oligonucleotides can. Moreover, the oligonucleotide with a bigger size or with a hairpin structure favors vesicle formation more, and the increases in the size of the head group and/or the length of the alkyl group of surfactant decrease the facilitation efficiency of oligonucleotide. Since so far, there is very limited report about the vesicle formation in DNA/single‐chained cationic surfactant solution, this study could be expected to increase the efficiency and applicability for DNA/amphiphile system. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 47: 434–449, 2009