Recent progress on cyclic polymers: Synthesis, bioproperties, and biomedical applications

Abstract

Polymer topologies exert a significant effect on its properties, and polymer nanostructures with advanced architectures, such as cyclic polymers, star-shaped polymers, and hyperbranched polymers, are a promising class of materials with advantages over conventional linear counterparts. Cyclic polymers, due to the lack of polymer chain ends, have displayed intriguing physical and chemical properties. Such uniqueness has drawn considerable attention over the past decade. The current review focuses on the recent progress in the design and development of cyclic polymer with an emphasis on its synthesis and bio-related properties and applications. Two primary synthetic strategies towards cyclic polymers, that is, ring-expansion polymerization and ring-closure reaction are summarized. The bioproperties and biomedical applications of cyclic polymers are then highlighted. In the end, the future directions of this rapidly developing research field are discussed.