The RAFT polymerization of methyl methacrylate to poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) yields well defined, biocompatible polymers that can easily be labeled with a broad variety of fluorescent dyes by postmodification of the polymer backbone or by using dye labeled monomers during polymerization. The formulation into fluorescent nanoparticles viananoprecipitation opens a toolbox of differently sized and labeled polymeric nanoparticles with narrow size distributions that can be used for internalization and toxicity studies. The localization of the nanoparticles was detected after certain time points by confocal laser scanning microscopy and flow cytometry investigations. In the end, uptake mechanisms was studied depending on the particle size by co-localization with marker for late endosomes and lysosomes and using specific inhibitors for endosomal uptake. We show that surfactant-free particles show significant variations depending on the particle size. Figure 1. Schematic workflow of the synthesis of labeled polymers, formulation of different sizes of labeled particles and images of the uptake studies in human cell lines.References:1. A. Vollrath, A. Tr�ger, C. Pietsch, S. Schubert, T. Nomoto, Y. Matsumoto, K. Kataoka, U. S. Schubert Soft Matter 2012  , 9, 99-108.2. A. Vollrath, D. Pretzel, C. Pietsch, I. Perevyazko, S. Schubert, G. M. Pavlov, U. S. Schubert, Macromol. Rapid Commun. 2012  , 33, 1791-1797.

Toolbox of differently sized and labeled PMMA nanoparticles for cell studies

248th National Meeting (2014)

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