Emulsion-based synthesis of semi-permeable protocells composed of Poly(<EM>N</EM>-isopropylacrylamide)-albumin hybrid amphiphiles
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By controlling molecular transport, semi-permeable membranes can be highly useful for biosensors. Body fluids such as blood contain not only small analytes but also many other large molecules, of which potential fouling severely impairs the sensing performance. If sensing probes are protected by the membranes that are selectively impermeable to the fouling molecules, the desired analytes can be sensitively detected even in a non-treated clinical sample. In this work, we propose the use of polymer-protein conjugates to build semi-permeable microcapsules, proteinosomes. We invented a self-assembly method using the amphiphilic structure of the conjugates comprised of PNIPAm with tunable hydrophobicity and hydrophilic albumin, an antifouling serum protein. Employing an oil-in-water emulsion process, the desired albumin-crosslinking networks were created; by encapsulating aptasensors, we demonstrate that the protocells can serve as high-performance biosensors, even in undiluted serum.