Solute Stabilization via Amphiphilic Polymers Possessing Different Architectures

摘要

Polymeric micelle systems, generated by self-assembly of amphiphilic polymers attract great interests and have been widely studied as nano-carrier for therapeutic molecules 1-3 . Besides commonly used linear amphiphilic polymers, branched polymers with more complex architectures were studied as polymeric micelle system4-8 . Particularly, brush polymers or molecular brushes are a group of graft polymers with densely grafted side-chain, resulting in an extended backbone conformation. They have advantages in improving loading amount, enhancing stability, and possessing low cytotoxicity and ideal releasing properties 2, 3, 9-11 . More complex asymmetric (bivalent) brush polymers with hetero side-chains attached to each repeating unit were created5, 7, 8, 12, 13 . Compared with tradition brush amphiphiles, branched structures have greater microstructural homogeneity, and the “pseudo- alternating” microstructure provided more steric shielding of the core from external reagents 13 . However, little previous work has studied the physical entrapment of solute by more complex asymmetric brush amphiphiles. Also, no correlation was established between solute loading properties and molecular architecture of amphiphiles. Therefore, it motivates us to explore fundamental solute loading behavior of amphiphilic macromolecules with different architectures.