Tripodal amphiphiles tunable for self-assembly to polymersomes

Cyclotriphosphazenes grafted with equimolar amounts of a hydrophilic polyethylene glycol and a hydrophobic oligopeptide in cis-nongeminal way form a new class of tripodal amphiphiles allowing both intra- and intermolecular hydrophobic interactions that differ from linear block copolymer amphiphiles. It has been found in this study that the tripodal amphiphiles can be tuned for self-assembly from micelles to bilayered polymersomes by controlling the hydrophobicity of the oligopeptide grafted. For instance, the tripodal amphiphiles with an intermediate hydrophobicity (0