Such a low CMC value reveals that there is a strong tendency of the SBC molecules toward micelle formation in water, attributing to the good flexibility and the extraordinary surfactant

features of the prepared SBC macromolecules. The low CMC value also indicates that the SBC micelles are highly thermodynamic stable, and that both the size and the polydispersity index of the SBC micelles are little changed with dilution [29]. TEM is a more powerful direct technique selleckchem to investigate the formation of micelles. As is shown in Figure  6a, b, many spherical gray core and dark shell particles with a size range of 40 ~ 80 nm are found to evenly disperse in the view of TEM images. Meanwhile, a few double-bell-like nanoparticles (capsules) deriving from the aggregation of two neighbor particles are also detected, indicating that the number of nucleation centers of the Y-27632 datasheet SBC micellar solution with the concentration of 5 × 10-3 mg/mL is not enough to form uniform monodispersed micelles with a small particle size (such as 50 nm). In addition, Figure  6b also shows that the particle size distribution of the SBC micelles approaches 1.4, implying a semi-monodispersity of the prepared SBC nano-carriers in aqueous solution. To further

investigate the spatial structure and the microenvironment of the SBC micelles, high-resolution TEM technique for a special selected SBC micelle has been used, and the corresponding TEM image is shown in Figure  6c. A clear and regular spherical nanoparticle composed of a gray core and a dark shell is obviously detected. The size of the observed SBC nanoparticle is near 72 nm. Moreover, by careful observation, one Montelukast Sodium can see that the thickness of the shell layer of the observed SBC nanoparticle is about 7 nm, which should be the thickness of the monolayer self-assembled by the SBC macromolecules (see Figure  1). A few linear SBC aggregates (un-spherical) with the similar layer thickness are also detected in Figure  6a, b, which is

also the evidence of self-assembly of the SBC macromolecules. Figure 6 TEM images of the SBC micelles at different magnifications (a, b, c). The SBC concentration is 5 × 10-3 mg/mL. Conclusions In summary, a new biodegradable and nontoxic nanocarrier for potential drug delivery has been successfully prepared by grafting hydrophilic HEA polymeric segments onto the natural hydrophobic soybean chains. Fluorescence spectra studies show that the prepared SBC macromolecules can easily self-assemble to form core-shell nanoparticles in aqueous solution, and that the CMC of the prepared SBC is only 4.57 × 10-4 mg/mL, which is much lower than those of well-known biodegradable biomedical nanocarriers. TEM results indicate that the prepared SBC micelles are composed of a large amount of nanocarriers with the size range of 40 to 80 nm, and that the thickness of the SBC macromolecular monolayer each nanocarrier is about 1/10 of the diameter of the detected SBC micelle.