Tailor-made Glycopolymers via Reversible Deactivation Radical Polymerization: Design, Properties and Applications

Investigating the underlying mechanism of biological interactions using glycopolymer is becoming increasingly important owing to their unique recognition properties. The multivalent interactions between lectin and glycopolymer are significantly influenced by...

Advances in amphiphilic polylactide/vinyl polymer based nano-assemblies for drug delivery

Micelles from self-assembled amphiphilic copolymers are highly attractive in drug delivery, due to their small size and hydrophilic stealth corona allowing prolonged lifetimes in the bloodstream and thus improved drug bioavailability. Polylactide (PLA)-based amphiphilic copolymer micelles are key candidates in this field, owing to the well-established biodegradability and biocompatibility of PLA. While PLA-b-poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) block copolymer micelles can be seen as the "gold standard" in drug delivery research so far, the progresses in controlled radical polymerizations (Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization, Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Transfer and Nitroxide Mediated Polymerization) have offered new opportunities in the design of advanced amphiphilic copolymers for drug delivery due to their flexibility in many regards: (i) they can be easily combined with ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of lactide, with a diversity in types of architectures (e.g., block, graft, star), (ii) they allow (co)polymerization of a wide range of vinyl monomers, possibly circumventing PEG limitations, (iii) functionalization (with biomolecules or stimuli-cleavable moieties) is versatile due to end-group fidelity and copolymerization ability with reactive/functional comonomers. In this review, we report on the advances in the past decade of such amphiphilic PLA/vinyl polymer based nano-carriers, regarding key properties such as stealth character, cell targeting and stimuli-responsiveness.

Polymer-Based Drug-Free Therapeutics for Anticancer, Anti-Inflammatory, and Antibacterial Treatment

This paper summarizes the area of biomedicinal polymers, which serve as nanomedicines even though they do not contain any anticancer or antiinflammatory drugs. These polymer nanomedicines with unique design are in the literature highlighted as a novel class of therapeutics called "drug-free macromolecular therapeutics." Their therapeutic efficacy is based on the tailored multiple presentations of biologically active vectors, i.e., peptides, oligopeptides, or oligosaccharides. Thus, they enable, for example, to directly induce the apoptosis of malignant cells by the crosslinking of surface slowly internalizing receptors, or to deplete the efficacy of tumor-associated proteins. The precise biorecognition of natural binding motifs by multiple vectors on the polymer construct remains the crucial part in the designing of these drug-free nanomedicines. Here, the rationales, designs, synthetic approaches, and therapeutic potential of drug-free macromolecular therapeutics consisting of various active vectors are described in detail. Recent developments and achievements for namely B-cell lymphoma treatment, Gal-3-positive tumors, inflammative liver injury, and bacterial treatment are reviewed and highlighted. Finally, a possible future prospect within this highly exciting new field of nanomedicine research is presented.