Polymers for control freaks: Sequence-defined poly(amidoamine)s and their biomedical applications

Abstract

A novel synthetic strategy towards monodisperse, sequence-defined polymers is presented. This technique was applied for the synthesis of a set of polymer carriers for DNA delivery combining monodisperse, sequence-defined PAA segments with PEO blocks. These precision polymers are sequentially assembled from a library of building blocks, enabling programmed interactions and functions by sequence-specific positioning of different functionalities. Due to the absence of chemical and molecular-weight distributions in the multifunctional segments, exact correlation of the monomer sequence and (bio)properties is attainable. This is demonstrated by the interactions with plasmid DNA, investigating the dsDNA complexation and condensation properties in dependence of the monomer sequence. A novel synthetic strategy towards sequence-defined poly(amidoamine)s based on solid phase synthesis is presented. A first set of monodisperse poly(amidoamine)s carrying different cationic functionalities is introduced and evaluated for their use as non-viral vectors for gene complexation and delivery. Copyright © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.