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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Jan 6.
Published in final edited form as: J Polym Sci A Polym Chem. 2012 Feb 20;50(10):1869–1880. doi: 10.1002/pola.25955

FIGURE 2.

FIGURE 2

Biomimicry approaches used for the synthesis, supramolecular assembly, stabilization, and further functionalization of “smart, biomimic” SCKs, in which the synthetic SCKs are of similar dimensions (10–100 nm), can be made to present surface features resembling those of proteins, for example, cationic moieties of the histone core proteins of nucleosomes for packaging of nucleic acids, hydrophilic surfaces and hydrophobic cores like lipoproteins for the function of packaging water-insoluble guests, or internal sites for loading of the nucleic acids in a manner analogous to the behavior of viral capsids. SCKs, viruses, and lipoproteins share the features of a nanosized (10–100 nm) core (in red)/shell (in blue) morphology with surface-decorating moieties (in green).