Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization for Biorelated Hybrid Materials

Abstract

Proteins, nucleic acids, lipid vesicles, and carbohydrates are the major classes of biomacromolecules that function to sustain life. Biology also uses post-translation modification to increase the diversity and functionality of these materials, which has inspired attaching various other types of polymers to biomacromolecules. These polymers can be naturally (carbohydrates and biomimetic polymers) or synthetically derived and have unique properties with tunable architectures. Polymers are either grafted-to or grown-from the biomacromolecule's surface, and characteristics including polymer molar mass, grafting density, and degree of branching can be controlled by changing reaction stoichiometries. The resultant conjugated products display a chimerism of properties such as polymer-induced enhancement in stability with maintained bioactivity, and while polymers are most often conjugated to proteins, they are starting to be attached to nucleic acids and lipid membranes (cells) as well. The fundamental studies with protein−polymer conjugates have improved our synthetic approaches, characterization techniques, and understanding of structure−function relationships that will lay the groundwork for creating new conjugated biomacromolecular products which could lead to breakthroughs in genetic and tissue engineering.

Biocatalytic nanoparticles for the stabilization of degassed single electron transfer-living radical pickering emulsion polymerizations

“…eversible deactivation radical polymerization (RDRP) techniques have emerged as one of the main tools for the efficient and precise synthesis of macromolecules with sophisticated and well-defined architectures for a wide range of macromolecular engineering applications [1][2][3][4][5][6] . Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), reversible addition-fragmentation (RAFT) polymerization and single electron transfer-living radical polymerization (SET-LRP) offer high versatility to produce polymers, and the ability to minimize the termination events, while favoring equal propagation of polymeric chains during the polymerization process [7][8][9] .…”

The rise of bio-inspired polymer compartments responding to pathology-related signals

“…To obtain homo-polymers and copolymers with well-defined properties and narrow polydispersity, several synthetic strategies have been developed, such as: (a) living ionic polymerization, (b) controlled/quasi-'living' radical polymerization (CRP), and (c) ring-opening polymerization (ROP). As all these synthetic pathways have been comprehensively reviewed, [71][72][73][74][75][78][79][80][81][82][83] we only present a short description thereof and point at their advantages and limitations.…”

Fully oxygen-tolerant atom transfer radical polymerization triggered by sodium pyruvate

“…As a result, ATRP techniques can be cumbersome to non-experts. On top of that, inert gas sparging or freeze-pump-thaw degassing are oen incompatible with the synthesis of hybrid biomacromolecules, 15,16 as they may cause protein denaturation or a loss of enzymatic activity. 17 Scheme 1 Approaches for oxygen scrubbing and achieving oxygen tolerance in ATRP.…”