Currently releasing systems more selective and effective cancer drugs are sought. In recent decades have been studied polymeric micelles formed by stars as they can have a higher efficacy as drug delivery system because of its greater storage area and compactness, this can be modulated by varying the synthesis conditions.<br/>In this project, the synthesis of six arms star-shaped Poly(ε-caprolactone)-b-poly(N-vinylcaprolactam) block copolymers were synthesized by first time, by combining ring opening polymerization (ROP) of ε-caprolactone (CL) and reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization of N-vinylcaprolactam (NVCL).<br/>SPCL-OH six arm star polymers with different PCL chain lengths were successfully synthesized. The molecular weights from GPC were 3035 g mol-1 to 14,820 g mol-1 with PDI less than 1.23. After functionalization with xanthates, controlled copolymerization of NVCL moiety to PCL-macroRAFT was carried out. Global blocks with molecular weights were obtained from 12,440 gmol-1 to 73,000 gmol-1. The resulting star copolymers were characterized using 1H NMR, GPC and UV-vis. We also demonstrated that the reactive xanthate groups were still retained in polymer chain ends using UV-vis.<br/>The star-shaped block copolymers self-assembled in solution into micelles with sizes varying from 25 to 250 nm. The effect of length of hydrophobic and hydrophilic segments on drug loading, micelle size and drug release was investigated. Micelles were characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).<br/>Furthermore, 5-fluorouracil was used as the model drugs to evaluate the potential of micelles prepared from star-shaped copolymers based on poly(ε-caprolactone)-block-poly(N-vinylcaprolactam) for drug loading.

Six-arm star-shaped poly(ε-caprolactone)-b-poly(n-vinylcaprolactam) micelles as nanocarriers of 5-fluorouracil

251st National Meeting (2016)

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