ИСТИНА

The water-soluble interpolymer polyelectrolyte complexes are extremely promising for diverse biomedical applications, including the encapsulation of biological substances, the transfer of drugs, gene transfection, and gene therapy. An effective method of creating water-soluble stoichiometric interpolymer polyelectrolyte complexes by the incorporation of hydrophilic groups into the main chain of one of the macroions was proposed in [1]. The solubility of such complexes was explained by the tendency of hydrophilic groups to be incorporated to the solvent: under certain conditions, they are able to form protective layers around core composed of hydrophobic groups [2]. In this study, by means of molecular dynamics computer simulation technique, the inner structure of such complexes was investigated. It was shown that they do possess the core-shell structure and that can obtain various shapes depending on the length of the chains, solvent quality and the Bjerrum length. We have distinguished solid and hollow, spherical and oblong particles. The size of the complex and distribution of different types of groups within it was investigated, the conditions of formation of different structures were revealed. The computer simulation results were supplemented by analytical theory calculations. The research was supported by Russian Science Foundation (project No. 18-73-00335). 1. T. Etrych, L. Leclercq, M. Boustta, M. Vert. Polyelectrolyte complex formation and stability when mixing polyanions and polycations in salted media: A model study related to the case of body fluids. Eur. J. Pharm. Sci. 2005, v. 25, pp. 281–288. 2. V. V. Vasilevskaya, L. Leclercq, M. Boustta, M. Vert, A. R. Khokhlov. Study of interpolymer complexes of oppositely charged macromolecules with different affinity to solvent. – Macromolecules 2007, v. 40, pp. 5934-5940. Keywords: polyelectrolyte complexes, computer simulation