Nature uses a broad range of structures and assemblies to perform its tasks within a living environment. Amongst them, the vesicle is of our interest which can be mimicked using amphiphilic block-copolymers forming polymer vesicles, or polymersomes. Besides other challenges, the synthesis of complex polymer structures, such as multi block-copolymers or fluorescently labelled polymers are of major interest in this field.Figure 1 : (A) Monomers used, (B) Bromomaleides applied to synthesise (C1) PEG/PMPC/PDPA miktoarm stars acting as (D) lineactant for domains as well as (C2) dye labelled PMPC-PDPA block-copolymer chains enabling (E) cell imaging.Interesting enough, both objectives can be reached using the same bromomaleimide chemistry as a basis (B). Essentially, the bromine atoms can be substituted by thiols in a controlled and quanititative fashion as reported by the Caddick group. In our case, we substituted hydrophilic (PMPC) and hydrophobic (PDPA) polymers onto the maleimide core. Another core feature of the bromomaleimides used in this study is their activated imide site, which can be substituted by amines � in our case PEG-NH2. Using these three simple steps, a highly functional PEG/PMPC/PDPA (C1) mikto arm star block-copolymer was created and proved to act as lineactant to stabilise domains in patchy polymersomes. (D)Similarly we show that a suitable linker molecule between a thiol functionalised PMPC-PDPA block-copolymer and a dye molecule carrying an amine functionality enabling cell imaging. (C2, E)

Bromomaleimide as a basis for polymersomes forming copolymer conjugation for both cell imaging and lineactant purposes

248th National Meeting (2014)

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