UV-responsive glycosomes as frameworks for FRET: The quest for bio-inspired energy transfer systems

[Display omitted] •Stilbene based glycopolymers are reported for the first time.•The synthesised polymers shows a strong aggregation tendency in aqueous environment.•Aggregate changes from tubular morphology to vesicles with increase in length of the hydrophobic stilbene block.•Aggregates gets dissociated upon UV irradiation.•Aggregates can act as carriers for hydrophobic dyes in water. Biological supramolecular assemblies have fascinated humans for centuries. The ability to mimic such natural architectures have been a long-standing goal for humans. Despite intensive research in the field of molecular assemblies, the ability to control morphology, utilizing two most basic segments of life viz. light and water is still a zone of immense challenge. Here we report the synthesis and aggregation studies of a pair of photoresponsive glycopolymers. These block copolymers which are assigned as PDACS-b-PBG was integrated utilizing controlled/living radical polymerization and comprises of a lyophobic stilbene block and a lyophilic glucose part. Our comprehensive morphological and photophysical examinations in aqueous phase uncovered that these glycopolymers form vesicular and cylindrical assemblies, which gets disassembled under UV light stimulus due to structural conversion from the trans to the cis form of the hydrophobic section. We further demonstrate that these vesicular nanocapsules have the capacity of confining hydrophobic guests and for certain fluorescent dyes these nanocages can act as scaffolds for FRET as affirmed by UV-vis and fluorescence spectroscopy. This feature can be additionally stretched out to switch the fluorescence of the captured coumarin dye through their control discharge.