1 research outputs found
Controlling Styrene Maleic Acid Lipid Particles through RAFT
The
ability of styrene maleic acid copolymers to dissolve lipid
membranes into nanosized lipid particles is a facile method of obtaining
membrane proteins in solubilized lipid discs while conserving part
of their native lipid environment. While the currently used copolymers
can readily extract membrane proteins in native nanodiscs, their highly
disperse composition is likely to influence the dispersity of the
discs as well as the extraction efficiency. In this study, reversible
addition–fragmentation chain transfer was used to control the
polymer architecture and dispersity of molecular weights with a high-precision.
Based on Monte Carlo simulations of the polymerizations, the monomer
composition was predicted and allowed a structure–function
analysis of the polymer architecture, in relation to their ability
to assemble into lipid nanoparticles. We show that a higher degree
of control of the polymer architecture generates more homogeneous
samples. We hypothesize that low dispersity copolymers, with control
of polymer architecture are an ideal framework for the rational design
of polymers for customized isolation and characterization of integral
membrane proteins in native lipid bilayer systems