Water soluble polyhydroxyalkanoates: future materials for therapeutic applications

Abstract

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are excellent candidate biomaterials due to their exceptional biodegradability and biocompatibility. However, PHAs need to have tunable hydrophilicity, chemical functionalities, and appropriate hydrolytic stability to expand their therapeutic applications towards more advanced areas. In this Tutorial Review, we present the most recent progress in the synthetic strategies of PHA-based water soluble polymers, including the functionalisation of PHAs with polar functional groups and the block/graft copolymerization of PHAs with hydrophilic components in various polymeric architectures. These chemically modified water soluble PHAs have significant impact on materials engineering and show great value in the fulfilment of smart biomaterials in emerging areas. The applications of water soluble PHAs in controlled drug release, cancer therapy, DNA/siRNA delivery and tissue engineering in new aspects are discussed. In addition, water soluble PHA monomer production will be briefly introduced, with emphasis on its bio-significance in medical physiology and the therapeutic effect in the treatment of diseases.

Polyhydroxyalkanoates: opening doors for a sustainable future

“…Depending on the carbon numbers in the monomeric constituents, PHAs can be classified as short-chain-length PHAs (C 3 -C 5 ), which consists of 3-5 carbon monomers, and mediumchain-length PHAs (MCL-PHA, C 6 -C 14 ), which consists of 6-14 carbon monomers in the 3-hydroxyalkanoate units (Figure 1b). 3,4 For example, poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB), poly(3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHV) and their copolymer poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) are typical examples of short-chain-length PHAs, whereas poly(3-hydroxyoctanoate) (PHO) and poly(3-hydroxynonanoate) (PHN), which are primarily formed as copolymers with 3-hydroxyhexanoate (HHx), 3-hydroxyheptanoate (HH) and/or 3-hydroxydecanoate (HD), are typical examples of MCL-PHAs. More than 150 different PHA monomers have been identified, which renders them the largest group of natural polyesters.…”

Opsonisation of nanoparticles prepared from poly(β-hydroxybutyrate) and poly(trimethylene carbonate)-b-poly(malic acid) amphiphilic diblock copolymers: Impact on the in vitro cell uptake by primary human macrophages and HepaRG hepatoma cells

“…Indeed, the choice of the hydrophobic block strongly impacts the physico-chemical properties of the resulting self-assembled systems such as the hydrodynamic radius and the critical micelle concentration (CMC) which are two key parameters. Poly(hydroxyalkanoates) (PHAs) and poly(carbonates) (PCs) have attracted considerable attention for the design of drug delivery systems due to their high biocompatibility and low toxicity (Furrer et al, 2008;Wu et al, 2009;Hazer, 2010;Hu et al, 2012;Shrivastav et al, 2013;Chen et al, 2014;Loyer and Cammas-Marion, 2014;Li and Loh, 2015;Nigmatullin et al, 2015). In this context, poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) and poly(trimethylene carbonate) have been developed to produce gels and matrices for tissue engineering (Shishatskaya et al, 2004 ;Asran et al, 2010 ;Song et al, 2011 ;Schüller-Ravoo et al, 2013 ;Rozila et al, 2016 ;Ding et al, 2016 ;Pascu et al, 2016 ;Zant et al, 2016) and NPs for drug delivery (Xiong et al, 2010 ;Jiang et al, 2013 ;Fukushima 2016 ;Pramual et al, 2016).…”

Polyhydroxyalkanoates

“…These polymers can be considered suitable alternatives to fossil fuel-derived plastics, but some problems associated with their industrial production must be contemplated, such as the high production cost of PHAs and the lack of sustainability of the fermentation process. This subject has been addressed by different strategies that rely on the functionalization of the polymers to increase their value (Andreeben, Taylor, & Steinb€ uchel, 2014;Dinjaski & Prieto, 2015;Li & Loh, 2015;Tortajada, Ferreira da Silva, & Prieto, 2013), the optimization of producing strains (Brigham, Zhila, Shishatskaya, Volova, & Sinskey, 2012;Leong, Show, Ooi, Ling, & Lan, 2014;Wang, Yin, & Chen, 2014), the use of industrial residues as substrates, or the development of energysaving processes (G omez et al, 2012;Nikodinovic-Runic et al, 2013).…”