ma8b00950_si_001.pdf (928.57 kB)
Fabrication of Cyclic Brush Copolymers with Heterogeneous Amphiphilic Polymer Brushes for Controlled Drug Release
journal contribution
posted on 2018-09-21, 20:13 authored by Zhe Liu, Yupeng Huang, Xiaolong Zhang, Xiaoyan Tu, Mingqi Wang, Liwei Ma, Baoyan Wang, Jinlin He, Peihong Ni, Hua WeiCyclic
brush (cb) copolymers that are composed of a cyclic
core densely grafted with radiating polymer brushes have emerged recently
as innovative materials for both fundamental and practical investigations
due to their capability to form unimolecular micelles with greater
stability relative to the analogues self-assembled by the bottlebrush
(bb) copolymers with an identical molecular weight
(MW). However, compared to the extensive and intensive studies on cb copolymers with homogeneous polymer brushes, the preparation
and application of cb copolymers with heterogeneous polymer
grafts remains unexplored likely due to the synthetic challenge. For
this purpose, we reported in this study the first preparation of cb copolymers with heterogeneous polymer brushes using a
diblock copolymer-based cyclic core template. An amphiphilic cb copolymer with both hydrophilic oligo (ethylene glycol)
(OEG) and hydrophobic oligo (ε-caprolactone) (OCL) brushes grafting
from a cyclic core was designed and synthesized by a combination of
atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), intrachain click cyclization,
and ring-opening polymerization (ROP) techniques. Interestingly, the
resulting amphiphilic cb copolymers showed greater in vitro cytotoxicity relative to the bb analogues for anticancer drug delivery. The amphiphilic cb copolymers with heteropolymer grafts developed herein
thus represent a novel platform for controlled drug release.