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Synthesis and self-assembly of four-armed star copolymer based on poly(ethylene brassylate) hydrophobic block as potential drug carries

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Abstract

A novel well-defined four-armed star poly(ethylene brassylate)-b-poly(poly(ethylene glycol)methyl ether methacrylate) (s-PEB-b-P(PEGMA)) was synthesized and self-assembled via the combination of ring-opening polymerization and reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization (RAFT) in this work. It proceeded firstly with the synthesis of hydrophobic four-armed star homopolymer of ethylene brassylate (EB) via ROP with organic catalyst, followed by the esterification reaction of s-PEB with chain transfer agent. Afterward, RAFT polymerization of PEGMA monomer was initialed using PEB-based macro-RAFT agent, resulting in the target amphiphilic four-armed star copolymer. The obtained s-PEB-b-P(PEGMA) can assemble into micelles with PEB segments as core and P(PEGMA) segments as shell in aqueous solution. The self-assembly behavior was studied by dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscope. The micelles of s-PEB-b-P(PEGMA) exhibited higher loading capacity of the anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX). The investigation of DOX release from the micelles demonstrated that the release rate of the hydrophobic drug could be effectively controlled.

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Acknowledgments

This work is financially supported by the Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology (Nankai University) under Grant No. 20140523, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SWU 113075 and XDJK2014B015), the Chongqing Postgraduate Science and Technology Innovation Project (CYS2015045), and Science and Technology Program of Beibei (2015–06).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Clean Energy & Advanced Materials, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Jiucun Chen, Junzhi Li, Jianhua Liu, Bo Weng & Liqun Xu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Jiucun Chen

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  1. Jiucun Chen
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  2. Junzhi Li
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  3. Jianhua Liu
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  4. Bo Weng
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  5. Liqun Xu
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Correspondence to Jiucun Chen.

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Chen, J., Li, J., Liu, J. et al. Synthesis and self-assembly of four-armed star copolymer based on poly(ethylene brassylate) hydrophobic block as potential drug carries. J Nanopart Res 18, 134 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-016-3446-6

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