Recent progress of glycopolymer synthesis for biomedical applications

Abstract

Glycopolymers are an important class of biomaterials which include carbohydrate moieties in their polymer structure.

Glycopolymer Brushes by Reversible Deactivation Radical Polymerization: Preparation, Applications, and Future Challenges

“…Within RDRP techniques, surface-initiated (SI)-ATRP is the most often used method. ATRP and SI-ATRP have excellent tolerance to functional groups and can be performed with glycomonomers without any protection of the hydroxyl groups [ 10 ]. RAFT and SI-RAFT polymerizations can be also employed for the preparation of glycopolymeric structures, using a chain transfer agent with no need of a metal source in opposition to ATRP [ 10 ].…”

“…ATRP and SI-ATRP have excellent tolerance to functional groups and can be performed with glycomonomers without any protection of the hydroxyl groups [ 10 ]. RAFT and SI-RAFT polymerizations can be also employed for the preparation of glycopolymeric structures, using a chain transfer agent with no need of a metal source in opposition to ATRP [ 10 ]. However, RAFT polymerization usually involves higher polymerization temperature than the one typically employed for ATRP, because of the use of thermal initiators as radical source.…”

“…However, their application in fields that require high recognition ability (e.g., biosensing or drug delivery) is actually limited compared to that of other polymer architectures, such as bottlebrushes. The latter provide higher surface area for the binding between the glycopolymer and lectins, ( Figure 2 ) [ 10 ]. In fact, the bottlebrush architecture gives polymeric materials with unique properties: (i) high concentration of polymeric side chains (sugar units); (ii) stretched polymer backbone because of the steric repulsion between side chains; and (iii) decreased spatial density of chain entanglement [ 16 ].…”

Glycopolymer Code: Programming Synthetic Macromolecules for Biological Targeting

“…At present, there are different routes in glycopolymer synthesis that allow to design more complex macromolecules with specific functionalities and properties in order to imitate complex biological systems. [6] In particular, an integration of single-chain technology to glycopolymer synthesis would have great potential to create 3D glycopolymers Targeting in a cellular level is still one of the major challenges in biomedical treatments. However, new synthetic and analytical techniques now allow the development of precisely prepared macromolecules.…”

“…At present, there are different routes in glycopolymer synthesis that allow to design more complex macromolecules with specific functionalities and properties in order to imitate complex biological systems. [ 6 ] In particular, an integration of single‐chain technology to glycopolymer synthesis would have great potential to create 3D glycopolymers as reversible self‐folding structures in terms of interfacial molecular recognition.…”