Self-assembly of regular hollow icosahedra in salt-free catanionic solutions

摘要: Self-assembled structures having a regular hollow icosahedral form (such as those observed for proteins of virus capsids) can occur result biomineralization processes1, but are extremely rare in mineral crystallites2. Compact icosahedra made from boron oxide have been reported3, equivalent synthetic organic components such surfactants not hitherto observed. It is, however, well known that lipids, mixtures anionic and cationic single chain surfactants, readily bilayers4,5 adopt variety distinct geometric forms: they fold into soft vesicles or random bilayers (the so-called sponge phase) ordered stacks flat undulating membranes6. Here we show salt-free self-assemble aggregates with shape. These stabilized by the presence pores located at vertices icosahedra. The resulting size about one micrometre mass 1010 daltons, making them larger than any protein assembly7 capsid8. We expect combination wall rigidity holes these to be practical value controlled drug DNA release.