Oxytocin, a particularly important nine residue peptide, is currently used as a therapeutic for a variety of reasons, one of the most important being in the prevention of post-partum haemorrhages. A big problem arises with access to oxytocin in low resource settings, due to having a limited stability in aqueous solutions particularly above refrigeration temperatures; therefore methods to enhance the stability are being required.Bioconjugates, consisting of a protein covalently attached to a polymer are an area of increasing interest within the polymer field due to the important materials they provide for a range of different fields by enhancing or giving new characteristics to existing biomolecules. Controlled/living radical polymerisation techniques have been particularly important for the successful synthesis of highly defined conjugates with a high level of structural control.This work will present some different approaches being taken for the synthesis of oxytocin-polymer conjugates utilising SET-LRP in aqueous media. For a grafting from approach well-defined polymers can be synthesised via initiator with conjugating groups attached and post polymerisation grafted. The synthesis of an Oxytocin macroinitiator is particularly useful for a grafting from approach at specific sites on the peptide.

Oxytocin: Preparing well defined polymer-protein conjugates utilising living radical polymerisation

248th National Meeting (2014)

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