Self-Assembling Micellar Clusters: Modification Strategies for New Functional Materials Creation

Aleksei Solomonov Deus-Lex@yandex.ru ^1,2 Yuriy Marfin ² Evgeniy Rumyantsev ² Natalia Bumagina ³ Elena Antina ³ Irek Musabirov ⁴ Sergey Ostakhov ⁵

¹Materials and Interfaces Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot
²Inorganic Chemistry Department, Ivanovo State University of Chemistry and Technology, Ivanovo
³Laboratory of Macroheterocyclic Compounds, G.A. Krestov Institute of Solution Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ivanovo
⁴EM Unit, Institute for Metals Superplasticity Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa
⁵Chamical Physics Department, Ufa Institute of Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ivanovo

Poor aqueous solubility is usually a major obstacle in the development of therapeutic agents, drug delivery, sensing or during investigation of properties of materials. There many approaches commonly used to enhance the solubility of poorly soluble drugs are exist. Micellar solubilization is one of a widely used methods for the dissolution of poorly soluble drugs. However, not always using of pure micellar aqueous solutions is suitable for solubilization. Previously, it was shown, that concept of micellar conjugation followed by clusters formation showed a great potential in the aspect of hydrophobic compounds solubilisation beyond their solubilization limit. With the aim to extend the application fields of micellar clusters, we developed new schemes for micellar clusterization which based on sequential self-assembly of nonionic detergent micelles followed by encapsulation of various substances. Proposed strategies allowed us to sufficiently increase solubility not always of “ordinary hydrophobic compounds” but several fluorescent dyes in aqueous media, which even serve as micellar clusterization agents. Hydrophobic fluorescent compounds-loaded micellar complexes demonstrates good optical response in aqueous media without crystallization. We also showed that clusters are also very tunable and can be modified by various nanoparticles of noble metals or magnet nanoparticles. Therefore, the conception of micellar clusters modifying allowed to obtain various nanosystems, such as fluoromagnetic clusters, or drug-loaded composites that open a new horizons for new advanced functional materials creation.

The work was supported by the Grant of the President of the Russian Federation No. МК- 8835.2016.3 and RFBR grants No. 16-03-01028, 15-33-20002 and 15-43-03214.