Polymer nanocontainers with controlled permeability

Incorporation of membrane proteins into the shell of (polymerized) triblock copolymer vesicles allows selective harvesting or separation of specific molecules, as well as their release on demand. The shell can protect encapsulated enzymes against a hostile environment and the channels in the shell can be used for `pre-filtering' the substrates to enhance the sensitivity of the enzyme. The present work demonstrates this by incorporating the porin OmpF into the membranes of triblock copolymer vesicles to control the permeability of their shells.