Solution properties of selectively modified hyperbranched polyesters

Advancing Antiamyloidogenic Activity by Fine-Tuning Macromolecular Topology

Amyloid β peptide can aggregate into thin β-sheet fibrils or plaques deposited on the extracellular matrix, which is the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Multifunctional macromolecular structures play an important role in inhibiting the aggregate formation of amyloidogenic materials and thus are promising candidates with antiamyloidogenic characteristics for the development of next-generation therapeutics. In this study, we evaluate how small differences in the dendritic topology of these structures influence their antiamyloidogenic activity by the comparison of "perfectly dendritic" and "pseudodendritic" macromolecules, both decorated with mannose units. Their compactness, the position of surface units, and the size of glyco-architectures influence their antiamyloidogenic activity against Aβ 40, a major component of amyloid plaques. For the advanced analysis of the aggregation of the Aβ peptide, we introduce asymmetric flow field flow fractionation as a suitable method for the quantification of large and delicate structures. This alternative method focuses on the quantification of complex aggregates of Aβ 40 and glycodendrimer/glyco-pseudodendrimer over different time intervals of incubation, showing a good correlation to ThT assay and CD spectroscopy results. Kinetic studies of the second-generation glyco-pseudodendrimer revealed maximum inhibition of Aβ 40 aggregates, verified with atomic force microscopy. The second-generation glyco-pseudodendrimer shows the best antiamyloidogenic properties confirming that macromolecular conformation in combination with optimal functional group distribution is the key to its performance. These molecular properties were validated and confirmed by molecular dynamics simulation.

Polyolefins Formed by Chain Walking Catalysis-A Matter of Branching Density Only?

Recently developed chain walking (CW) catalysis is an elegant approach to produce materials with controllable structure and properties. However, there is still a lack in understanding of how the reaction mechanism influences the macromolecular structures. In this study, a series of dendritic polyethylenes (PE) synthesized by Pd-α-diimine-complex through CW catalysis (CWPE) is investigated by means of theory and experiment. Thereby, the exceptional ability of in situ tailoring polymer structure by varying synthesis parameters was exploited to tune the branching architecture, which allowed us to establish a precise relationship between synthesis, structure, and solution properties. The systematically produced polymers were characterized by state-of-the-art multidetector separation and neutron scattering experiments as well as atomic force microscopy to access molecular properties of CWPE. On a global scale, the CWPE appear in a worm-like conformation independently on the synthesis conditions. However, severe differences in their contraction factors suggested that CWPE differ substantially in topology. These observations were verified by NMR studies that showed that CWPE possess a constant total number of branches but varying branching distribution. Small angle neutron scattering experiments gave access to structural characteristics from global to segmental scale and revealed the unique heterogeneity of CWPE, which is predominantly based on differences in their dendritic side chains. The experimental data were compared to theoretical CW structures modeled with different reaction-to-walking probabilities. Simple theoretical arguments predict a crossover from dendritic to linear topologies yielding a structural range from purely linear to dendritic chain growth. Yet, comparison of theoretical and empirical scattering curves gave the first evidence that a transition state to worm-like topologies is actually experimentally accessible. This crossover regime is characterized by linear global features and dendritic local substructures contrary to randomly hyperbranched systems. Instead, the obtained CWPE systems have characteristics of disordered dendritic bottle brushes and can be adjusted by the walking rate/reaction probability of the catalyst.

Characterization of the commercial hyperbranched polyesters

In this paper, properties of the commercially available Boltorn? hydroxy-functional aliphatic hyperbranched polyesters of the second, third and fourth pseudo generation, were investigated. Beside that, samples of the third and fourth pseudo generation were fractionated using the precipitation fractionation method to obtain three fractions of each sample, which were also investigated in this paper. According to the results obtained by GPC analysis, molar mass and polydispersity of the investigated Boltorn? hyperbranched polyesters increased with increase of the pseudo generation number. Value of the limiting viscosity number of the investigated samples, determined using the viscosity measurements of dilute solutions of these polymers in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, increased with increase of the pseudo generation number. On the other side, value of the limiting viscosity number of the fractions decreased from the first up to the third fraction. The same trend was also observed for the values of the hydrodynamic diameter of parent samples and their fractions, determined by dynamic light scattering using N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone as solvent. The thermal properties of the investigated Boltorn? hyperbranched polyesters were determined by thermogravimetry in nitrogen atmosphere and it has been shown that thermal stability of these samples increased with increase of the pseudo generation number. End hydroxyl groups of the second and third pseudo generation samples were modified with ?-alanine to obtain hyperbranched samples soluble in water. That was fully accomplished only for the Boltorn? hyperbranched polyester of the second pseudo generation. On the other side, modified sample of the third pseudo generation was possible to dissolve in water only after adding small amount of the NaOH.