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Crew cut, flower-like and mixed-shaggy micelles prepared from HLH and LHL triblocks as carriers: a comparative study of encapsulation, stability and release properties

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Abstract

Two model triblock copolymers composed of hydrophilic (H) polyethylene glycol (PEG) and lypophilic (L) poly(butylene adipate) (PBA) have been synthesized and characterized with quite same molecular weight of each segments and different segment order: PBA-PEG-PBA and mPEG-PBA-mPEG. While LHL micelles adopt a flower-like arrangement with looped PEG on the shell, HLH micelles form a crew-cut particle with stretched hydrated PEG on the shell. The comparative investigation of the pharmaceutical properties of the obtained crewcut and flower-like micellar nanoparticles displayed advantages and disadvantages over each other. In order to exploit the advantages of both systems, the mixing has been used as a strategy. The mixed micelles with “shaggy arrangement” have been produced from the comicelling of LHL and HLH triblocks. They revealed better drug loading, encapsulation efficiency, more controlled release rates, smaller particle sizes and size distributions.

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Abbreviations

CMC:

Critical micelle concentration

H:

Hydrophile

L:

Lipophile

PBA:

Poly (butylene adipate)

mPEG:

Monomethoxy polyethylene glycol

PME:

Polymer micellation efficiency

Rh :

Radius of Hydration

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Patrick Stals at Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Faculty, Technology University of Eindhoven for obtaining AFM micrographs. The authors also would like to thank Mr. Hashemi (Laboratory of Electron Microscopy of University College of Science, University of Tehran) for obtaining SEM micrographs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Polymer chemistry department, School of chemistry, University of Tehran, Tehran, PO Box 14155-6455, Iran

    Salman Hassanzadeh & Sepideh Khoee

  2. Drug Design & Development Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, PO Box 14155-6451, Iran

    Mohamad Mahdavi & Alireza Foroumadi

Authors
  1. Salman Hassanzadeh
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  2. Sepideh Khoee
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  3. Mohamad Mahdavi
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  4. Alireza Foroumadi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sepideh Khoee.

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Hassanzadeh, S., Khoee, S., Mahdavi, M. et al. Crew cut, flower-like and mixed-shaggy micelles prepared from HLH and LHL triblocks as carriers: a comparative study of encapsulation, stability and release properties. J Polym Res 19, 9978 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10965-012-9978-2

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