VESICLE AND CELL NETWORKS - INTERCONNECTING CELLS BY SYNTHETIC-POLYMERS

Water-soluble polymers carrying a small fraction of hydrophobic groups are able to insert these groups into the hydrophobic interior of lipi d bilayers or membranes. Under certain conditions such polymers can in terconnect different vesicles or biological cells. With increasing pol ymer concentration this leads to the formation of a three-dimensional network. In this paper we report about the preparation and a first cha racterization of the structure and the mechanical properties of these new vesicle-polymer and polymer-cell gels composed of alpha,omega-chol esterol-modified poly(oxyethylene) and dimethyldioctadecylammonium chl oride vesicles or living cells.