Abstract
Polymeric nanoparticles with multifunctional capabilities, including surface functionalization, hold great promise to address challenges in targeted drug delivery. Here, we describe a concise, robust synthesis of a heterofunctional polyethylene glycol (PEG), HO-PEG-azide. This macromer was used to synthesize polylactide (PLA)-PEG-azide, a functional diblock copolymer. Rapid precipitation of this copolymer with a hydrophobic cargo resulted in the generation of monodisperse nanoparticles with azides in the surface corona. To demonstrate conjugation to these nanoparticles, a regioselectively modified alkyne-folate was employed as a model small molecule ligand, and the artificial protein A1 with an alkyne moiety introduced by unnatural amino acid substitution was selected as a model macromolecular ligand. Using the copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne ligation reaction, both ligands exhibited good conjugation efficiency even when low concentrations of ligands were used.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 2228-2236 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Molecular Pharmaceutics |
Volume | 9 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Aug 6 2012 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Drug Discovery
- Molecular Medicine
- Pharmaceutical Science
Keywords
- bioconjugation
- bioorthogonal reactions
- click chemistry
- nanoparticles