Ranga Partha, Melinda Lackey, Andreas Hirsch, S W Casscells, and Jodie L Conyers (2007)
Assembly of amphiphilic C60 fullerene derivatives into nanoscale supramolecular structures
Journal of Nanobiotechnology 5(6).
The amphiphilic fullerene monomer (AF-1) consists of a buckyball cage to which a Newkome-like dendrimer unit and five lipophilic C12 chains positioned octahedrally to the dendrimer unit are attached. In this study, we report a novel fullerene-based liposome termed buckysome that is water soluble and forms stable spherical nanometer sized vesicles. Cryogenic electron microscopy (Cryo-EM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and dynamic light scattering (DLS) studies were used to characterize the different supra-molecular structures readily formed from the fullerene monomers under varying pH, aqueous solvents, and preparative conditions.