Robust nanoparticles with well-controlled size are desirable for a variety of applications such as drug delivery, diagnostics and sensing. For further applications of micelle-like assemblies in areas such as drug delivery, where drug carriers made from micelle-like assemblies are injected intravenously (IV), the concentration of drug carrier will dramatically decrease to a level below the CAC of assemblies. To solve this problem, finding a way to stabilize the assemblies is essential for further applications of micelle-like assemblies. To obtain stable assemblies, one strategy that has often been used is to crosslink the aggregates. Crosslinking the assembly will stabilize the aggregate structure and de-crosslinking the aggregate will make the assembly ready for disassembly triggered by stimulus. Adding stimulus will then allow for the release of guest molecules that are encapsulated inside the assemblies. In this project, we utilized the thiol-yne ‘Click’ chemistry to both stabilize and control the size of the assemblies formed from temperature-sensitive amphiphilic dendron. We have previously reported that pentaethylene glycol containing facially amphiphilic dendron shows temperature-sensitive property and there is a size change with temperature variation. By taking advantage of this behavior, we were able to achieve different sizes of stably crosslinked micelle-like assemblies by photo-crosslinking the propargyl moieties of a G1 facially amphiphilic dendron with dithiol crosslinker molecules. Assemblies that are crosslinked with pH-responsive crosslinker molecule has been shown to disaggregate in the acidic environment according to the guest release studies. All crosslinked and de-crosslinked assemblies are characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).<br/>            In this work, we provided a design of preparing robust and size-tunable assemblies with a stimuli-responsive feature.<br/><br/>

Size-tunable dendritic nanoparticles through thiol-yne click chemistry

251st National Meeting (2016)

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