Synthesis and self-assembly of thermosensitive double-hydrophilic poly(N-vinylcaprolactam)-b-poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) diblock copolymers

Abstract

We report on novel diblock copolymers of poly(N‐vinylcaprolactam) (PVCL) and poly(N‐vinyl‐2‐pyrrolidone) (PVPON) (PVCL‐b‐PVPON) with well‐defined block lengths synthesized by the MADIX/reversible addition‐fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) process. We show that the lower critical solution temperatures (LCST) of the block copolymers are controllable over the length of PVCL and PVPON segments. All of the diblock copolymers dissolve molecularly in aqueous solutions when the temperature is below the LCST and form spherical micellar or vesicular morphologies when temperature is raised above the LCST. The size of the self‐assembled structures is controlled by the molar ratio of PVCL and PVPON segments. The synthesized homopolymers and diblock copolymers are demonstrated to be nontoxic at 0.1–1 mg mL−1 concentrations when incubated with HeLa and HEK293 cancer cells for various incubation times and have potential as nanovehicles for drug delivery. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2014, 52, 2725–2737

Poly(N-vinylcaprolactam), a comprehensive review on a thermoresponsive polymer becoming popular

“…The same trend of increased LCST for increasing NVP content was corroborated recently [29,49]. A similar effect was reported for N-vinyl-N-acetamide as comonomer (VMA) [70].…”

“…Two cell lines (HeLa, human cervical carcinoma cells; and HEK293, human embryonic kidney cells) were used to assess the cytotoxicity of PNVCL, PNVP and PNVCL-b-PNVP block copolymers of different length [49]. The A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 16 cytotoxicity was negligible for all the tested samples for both cell lines compared with the negative control for polymer concentrations between 0.1 and 1 mg/ml.…”

Hydrogen‐Bonded Multilayers of Tannic Acid as Mediators of T‐Cell Immunity

“…Poly(N-vinylcaprolactam) (PVCL), ( M w 20 800 g mol −1 , Ð=1.19) was synthesized as described elsewhere. [lxix] Ultrapure (Siemens) filtered water with a resistivity of 18.2 MΩ cm was used for preparation of buffered solutions. Silica microparticles of 4 µm in diameter were purchased from Polysciences Inc. Chicken OVA 323–339 peptide sequence (ISQAVHAAHAEINEAGR) and the BDC-2.5 mimotope (EKAHRPIWARMDAKK) were synthesized by Sigma Genosys.…”

Synthesis of well-defined alkyne terminated poly(N-vinyl caprolactam) with stringent control over the LCST by RAFT

“…35, 37, 39 or MNHS 34 or increase the PNVCL concentration in the turbidimetry assays. Herein, the solution behavior of the pure homopolymers presented in Table 1 was also studied in order to create a library of polymers with different LCSTs.…”