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Lipid Nanotubes

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Smart Soft-Matter Nanotubes

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Abstract

The dawn of soft-matter nanotube (SMNT) begins with concurrent discovery for the self-assembly of hollow tubular structures from lipid derivatives in Japan as well as USA. Kunitake and co-workers demonstrated the spontaneous assembly of SMNTs from chiral, double-chain ammonium amphiphile in 1984. Both Ihara’s group and Yager, Shoen, and co-workers also reported on the self-assembly of SMNTs from glutamic acid amphiphile and diacetylenic phospholipids, respectively. This chapter describes the self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules, i.e., lipids into tubular structures in liquid media. The amphiphiles, therefore, comprise both hydrophilic (solvophilic) and hydrophobic (solvophobic) moieties in the same molecule. For example, glutamic acid derivatives, bile acid derivatives, and glycolipids play an important role in acting as lipid components that can undergo the self-assembly into nanotubes. Their formation pathways pass mainly through various intermediate structures, e.g., one-dimensional sheets, twisted ribbons, helically coiled ribbons, and two-dimensional curved sheets. In addition to the rigidity of a representative lipid nanotube, the properties and functions, e.g., solubilization and refolding of protein, light-harvesting antenna system, chiral sensing of amino acids, enhancement of photocatalytic activity, photoinduced morphological transformation, and the preparation of hydrogel fiber mats are introduced as representative applications of the lipid nanotubes.

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  1. Nanomaterials Research Institute (NMRI), Department of Materials and Chemistry, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba Central 5, 1-1-1 Higashi, 305-8565, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

    Toshimi Shimizu

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Shimizu, T. (2021). Lipid Nanotubes. In: Smart Soft-Matter Nanotubes. Nanostructure Science and Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2685-2_2

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