Preparation of single chain nanoparticles via photoinduced radical coupling process

Quasi-Chromophores Segregated by Single-Chain Nanoparticles of Fluorinated Zwitterionic Random Copolymers Showing Remarkably Enhanced Fluorescence Emission Capable of Fluorescent Cell Imaging

Organic and polymer fluorescent nanomaterials are a frontier research focus. Here in this work, a series of fluorinated zwitterionic random copolymers end-attached with a quasi-chromophoric group of pyrene or tetraphenylethylene (TPE) are well synthesized via atom transfer radical polymerization with activators regenerated by electron transfer (ARGET ATRP). Those random copolymers with total degree of polymerization 100 or 200 are able to produce fluorescent single-chain nanoparticles (SCNPs) through intra-chain self-folding assembly with quite uniform diameters in the range of 10-20 nm as characterized by dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy. By virtue of the segregation or confinement effect, both SCNPs functionalized with pyrene or TPE group are capable of emitting fluorescence, with pyrene tethered SCNPs exhibiting stronger fluorescence emission reaching the highest quantum yield ≈20%. Moreover, such kind of fluorescent SCNPs manifest low cytotoxicity and good cell imaging performance for Hela cells. The creation of fluorescent SCNPs through covalently attached one quasi-chromophore to the end of one fluorinated zwitterionic random copolymer provides an alternative strategy for preparing polymeric luminescence nanomaterials, promisingly serving as a new type of fluorescent nanoprobes for biological imaging applications.

A New Approach to The Synthesis of Polylactide/Polyacrylonitrile Block Copolymers

As a result of the search for alternatives to the known methods for the synthesis of PLA/vinyl polymer block copolymers, a new approach based on the “iniferter” concept was demonstrated in this article. In this approach, the introduction of a group that was capable of forming radicals and initiating radical polymerization into the polylactide (PLA) chain was conducted. Then, the obtained functional PLA was heated in the presence of a radically polymerizable monomer. The tetraphenylethane (TPE) group was chosen as a group that could dissociate to radicals. PLA with a TPE group in the middle of the chain was prepared in several steps as follows: (1) the synthesis of 4-(2-hydroxyethoxy)benzophenone (HBP-ET); (2) the polymerization of lactide, which was initiated with HBP-ET; and (3) the coupling of HBP-ET chains under UV radiation to form TPE-diET_PLA. A “macroiniferter”, i.e., TPE-diET_PLA, was used to initiate the polymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) by heating substrates at 85 °C. ¹H and ¹³C NMR and SEC analyses of the products indicated that the triblock copolymer PLA-PAN-PLA formed and thus confirmed the assumed mechanism of the initiation of AN polymerization, which relied on the addition of the radical that formed from TPE (linked with the PLA chain) to the monomer molecule. Copolymerizations were performed with the application of prepared TPE-diET_PLA with three different M_n’s (1400, 2200, and 3300) and with different AN/PLA ratios, producing copolymers with varied compositions, i.e., with AN/LA ratios in the range of 2.3–11.1 and M_n’s in the range of 5100–9400. It was shown that the AN/LA ratio in the copolymer was increasable by the applied excess of AN with respect to the PLA macroiniferter in the feed and that more AN monomer was able to be introduced to PLA with shorter chains.

Advances in the Phototriggered Synthesis of Single-Chain Polymer Nanoparticles

Clean use of photons from light to activate chemical reactions offers many possibilities in different fields, from chemistry and biology to materials science and medicine. This review article describes the advances carried out in last decades toward the phototriggered synthesis of single-chain polymer nanoparticles (SCNPs) as soft nanomaterials with promising applications in enzyme-mimicking catalysis and nanomedicine, among other different uses. First, we summarize some different strategies developed to synthesize SCNPs based on photoactivated intrachain homocoupling, phototriggered intrachain heterocoupling and photogenerated collapse induced by an external cross-linker. Next, we comprehensively review the emergent topic of photoactivated multifolding applied to SCNP construction. Finally, we conclude by summarizing recent strategies towards phototriggered disassembly of SCNPs.