Dendrimers are well-defined, highly branched, three-dimensional molecules with a large number of reactive end groups. PEGylated dendrimers have received considerable attention as new polymeric materials for applications in areas such as gene therapy, drug delivery, and as MRI contrast agents. In the present work, we have carried out the synthesis of various generations of a novel mPEG-block-poly(aryl-amide-sulfide) dendrimer. The polymer is built from methoxypoly(ethylene glycol)amine (mPEG-NH2), methyl 3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoate (methyl gallate), allyl bromide, and 2-aminoethanethiol, allowing the alkene functional groups at the periphery of the dendron in half generations to be easily modified for specific applications (generation 3 is shown below). For example, separate reactions of the dendrimer with 2-aminoethanethiol and 3-thiopropionic acid yielded polymers with amino and carboxylic acid groups on the periphery, respectively. Critical micelle concentration studies were carried out by fluorescence spectroscopy, using pyrene as a probe. In addition, the formation of nanoplexes with nucleic acids at various N/P ratios (where N is the number of amino groups present on the dendrimer and P is the number of phosphate groups in nucleic acids) was characterized by gel shift, circular dichroism (CD), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Synthesis of the above dendrimers, their characterization with techniques such as NMR and MALDI-TOF, and the applications of the dendrimers in gene delivery will be presented and discussed.

Synthesis, characterization, and application studies of PEGylated-poly(aryl-amide-sulfide) dendrimer

247th National Meeting (2014)

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