Supramolecular gels of cholesterol-modified gellan gum with disc-like and worm-like micelles
The association between a hydrophobically modified polysaccharide, gellan gum, with micelles based on a surfactant bearing the same hydrophobic tail as pendant groups was investigated by rheology and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). Gellan gum grafted with cholesterol groups (20% mol/mol tetrasaccharide unit), GeCh, was mixed with polyoxyethylene cholesteryl ether (ChEO10), which comprises a cholesterol group as the tail linked to a small polyoxyethylene headgroup, and self-assembles into micelles with an unusual disc-like morphology.