Self-interrupted synthesis of sterically hindered aliphatic polyamide dendrimers

Drug-dendrimer complexes and conjugates: Detailed furtherance through theory and experiments

Dendritic nanovectors-based drug delivery has gained significant attention in the past couple of decades. Dendrimers play a crucial role in deciding the solubility of sparingly soluble drug molecules and help in improving pharmacokinetics. A few important steps in drug delivery through dendrimers, such as drug encapsulation, formulation, and target-specific delivery, play an important role in deciding the fate of a drug molecule. It is also of prime importance to understand the interactions between a drug molecule and dendrimers at atomistic levels to decode the mechanism of action of drug-dendrimer complexes and their reliability in terms of drug delivery. Colossal progress in current experimental and computational approaches in the field has resulted in a vast amount of data that needs to be curated to be further implemented efficiently. Improved computational power has led to greater accuracy and prompt predictions of properties of drug-dendrimer complexes and their mechanism of action. The current review encapsulates the pioneering work in the field, experimental achievements in terms of drug delivery, and newer computational techniques employed in the advancement of the field.

Propagation-Instigated Self-Limiting Polymerization of Multiarmed Amphiphiles into Finite Supramolecular Polymers

A fundamental goal in the noncovalent synthesis of ordered supramolecular polymers (SPs) is to achieve precise control over their size and size distribution; however, the reversible nature of noncovalent interactions often results in formation of living SPs with high dispersity in length. We report here on the self-limiting supramolecular polymerization (SPZ) of a series of multiarmed amphiphiles with propagation-attenuated reactivities that can automatically terminate the polymerization process, enabling effective control in both lengths and polydispersity. Through incorporating multiarmed oligoethylene-glycol (OEG) onto a quadratic aromatic segment, the lengths of the resultant SPs can be tuned from ∼1 μm to 130 and 50 nm with a polydispersity index of ∼1.2 for the last two SPs. We believe that the level of chain frustration of the multiarmed OEG segments, determined by both the number of arms and the degree of polymerization, poses physical and entropic constrains for supramolecular propagation to exceed a threshold length.

An Accelerated Modular-Orthogonal Ni-Catalyzed Methodology to Symmetric and Nonsymmetric Constitutional Isomeric AB2 to AB9 Dendrons Exhibiting Unprecedented Self-Organizing Principles

Five libraries of natural and synthetic phenolic acids containing five AB₃, ten constitutional isomeric AB₂, one AB₄, and one AB₅ were previously synthesized and reported by our laboratory in 5 to 11 steps. They were employed to construct seven libraries of self-assembling dendrons, by divergent generational, deconstruction, and combined approaches, enabling the discovery of a diversity of supramolecular assemblies including Frank-Kasper phases, soft quasicrystals, and complex helical organizations, some undergoing deracemization in the crystal state. However, higher substitution patterns within a single dendron were not accessible. Here we report three libraries consisting of 30 symmetric and nonsymmetric constitutional isomeric phenolic acids with unprecedented sequenced patterns, including two AB₂, three AB₃, eight AB₄, five AB₅, six AB₆, three AB₇, two AB₈, and one AB₉ synthesized by accelerated modular-orthogonal Ni-catalyzed borylation and cross-coupling. A single etherification step with 4-(n-dodecyloxy)benzyl chloride transformed all these phenolic acids, of interest also for other applications, into self-assembling dendrons. Despite this synthetic simplicity, they led to a diversity of unprecedented self-organizing principles: lamellar structures of interest for biological membrane mimics, helical columnar assemblies from rigid-solid angle dendrons forming Tobacco Mosaic Virus-like assemblies, columnar organizations from adaptable-solid angle dendrons forming disordered micellar-like nonhelical columns, columns from supramolecular spheres, five body-centered cubic phases displaying supramolecular orientational memory, rarely encountered in previous libraries forming predominantly Frank-Kasper phases, and two Frank-Kasper phases. Lessons from these self-organizing principles, discovered within a single generation of self-assembling dendrons, may help elaborate design principles for complex helical and nonhelical organizations of synthetic and biological matter.

Slightly congested amino terminal dendrimers. The synthesis of amide-based stable structures on a large scale

Preparation of a new family of stable and aqueous soluble high-generation aliphatic polyamide amino terminal dendrimers. Promising scaffolds for applications where the combination of stability, multivalence and efficient conjugation is required.

Synthesis, characterization and applications of poly-aliphatic amine dendrimers and dendrons

In the current era, the dendrimers have vast potential applications in the area of electronics, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, engineering products, photonics, drug delivery, catalysis, electronic devices, nanotechnologies and environmental issues. This review recaps the synthesis, characterization and applications of poly-aliphatic amine dendrimers.

Synthesis of Amino Terminal Clicked Dendrimers. Approaches to the Application as a Biomarker

Herein, we present an easy and efficient synthesis of amino terminal dendrons, combining protection/deprotection reactions with copper-catalyzed azide alkyne cycloaddition in a convergent way. This new approach affords dendrons in gram scale with excellent yields and easy purification. By choosing the appropriate azido-functionalized core, these dendrons lead to a more efficient and controlled convergent synthesis of dendrimers with different sizes and shapes and multivalence. The amino terminal dendrimers were analyzed by diffusion-ordered spectroscopy experiments. The observed dendrimer size is in excellent correlation with the expected size and shape by molecular dynamic simulations. The construction of these kinds of nanostructures, in a simple and efficient way, opens new opportunities for biomedical applications. Moreover, by choosing the appropriate core, these versatile macromolecules become an excellent fluorescent biomarker.

On Irregularity Measures of Some Dendrimers Structures

A graph is said to be a regular graph if all its vertices have the same degree, otherwise, it is irregular. Irregularity indices are usually used for quantitative characterization of the topological structure of non-regular graphs. In numerous applications and problems in material engineering and chemistry, it is useful to be aware that how irregular a molecular structure is? Furthermore, evaluations of the irregularity of underline molecular graphs could be valuable for QSAR/QSPR studies, and for the expressive determines of chemical and physical properties, such as enthalpy of vaporization, toxicity, resistance, Entropy, melting and boiling points. In this paper, we think over the following four irregularity measures: the irregularity index by Albertson, σ irregularity index, the total irregularity index and the variance of vertex degrees. By way of graph structural estimation and derivations, we determine these irregularity measures of the molecular graphs of different classes of dendrimers.

Screening Libraries of Amphiphilic Janus Dendrimers Based on Natural Phenolic Acids to Discover Monodisperse Unilamellar Dendrimersomes

Natural, including plant, and synthetic phenolic acids are employed as building blocks for the synthesis of constitutional isomeric libraries of self-assembling dendrons and dendrimers that are the simplest examples of programmed synthetic macromolecules. Amphiphilic Janus dendrimers are synthesized from a diversity of building blocks including natural phenolic acids. They self-assemble in water or buffer into vesicular dendrimersomes employed as biological membrane mimics, hybrid and synthetic cells. These dendrimersomes are predominantly uni- or multilamellar vesicles with size and polydispersity that is predicted by their primary structure. However, in numerous cases, unilamellar dendrimersomes completely free of multilamellar assemblies are desirable. Here, we report the synthesis and structural analysis of a library containing 13 amphiphilic Janus dendrimers containing linear and branched alkyl chains on their hydrophobic part. They were prepared by an optimized iterative modular synthesis starting from natural phenolic acids. Monodisperse dendrimersomes were prepared by injection and giant polydisperse by hydration. Both were structurally characterized to select the molecular design principles that provide unilamellar dendrimersomes in higher yields and shorter reaction times than under previously used reaction conditions. These dendrimersomes are expected to provide important tools for synthetic cell biology, encapsulation, and delivery.

Bioactive cell-like hybrids from dendrimersomes with a human cell membrane and its components

Cell-like hybrids from natural and synthetic amphiphiles provide a platform to engineer functions of synthetic cells and protocells. Cell membranes and vesicles prepared from human cell membranes are relatively unstable in vitro and therefore are difficult to study. The thicknesses of biological membranes and vesicles self-assembled from amphiphilic Janus dendrimers, known as dendrimersomes, are comparable. This feature facilitated the coassembly of functional cell-like hybrid vesicles from giant dendrimersomes and bacterial membrane vesicles generated from the very stable bacterial Escherichia coli cell after enzymatic degradation of its outer membrane. Human cells are fragile and require only mild centrifugation to be dismantled and subsequently reconstituted into vesicles. Here we report the coassembly of human membrane vesicles with dendrimersomes. The resulting giant hybrid vesicles containing human cell membranes, their components, and Janus dendrimers are stable for at least 1 y. To demonstrate the utility of cell-like hybrid vesicles, hybrids from dendrimersomes and bacterial membrane vesicles containing YadA, a bacterial adhesin protein, were prepared. The latter cell-like hybrids were recognized by human cells, allowing for adhesion and entry of the hybrid bacterial vesicles into human cells in vitro.

The dendritic effect and magnetic permeability in dendron coated nickel and manganese zinc ferrite nanoparticles

The collective magnetic properties of nanoparticle (NP) solid films are greatly affected by inter-particle dipole-dipole interactions and therefore the proximity of the neighboring particles. In this study, a series of dendritic ligands (generations 0 to 3, G0-G3) have been designed and used to cover the surface of magnetic NPs to control the spacings between the NP components in single lattices. The dendrons of different generations introduced here were based on the 2,2-bis(hydroxymethyl)propionic acid (Bis-MPA) scaffold and equipped with an appropriate surface binding group at one end and several fatty acid segments at the other extremity. The surface of the NPs was then modified by partial ligand exchange between the primary stabilizing surfactants and the new dendritic wedges. It was shown that this strategy permitted very precise tuning of inter-particle spacings in the range of 2.9-5.0 nm. As expected, the increase in the inter-particle spacings reduced the dipole-dipole interactions between magnetic NPs and therefore allowed changes in their magnetic permeability. The dendron size and inter-particle distance dependence was studied to reveal the dendritic effect and identify the optimal geometry and generation.

Preparation and Self-Assembly of Dendronized Janus Fe3O4-Pt and Fe3O4-Au Heterodimers

Janus nanoparticles (NPs) often referred to as nanosized analogs of molecular surfactants are amphiphilic structures with potential applications in materials science, biomedicine, and catalysis, and their synthesis and self-assembly into complex architectures remain challenging. Here, we demonstrate the preparation of Janus heterodimers via asymmetric functionalization of Fe₃O₄-Pt and Fe₃O₄-Au heterodimeric NPs. The hydrophobic and hydrophilic dendritic ligands that carry phosphonic acid and disulfide surface binding groups selectively coat the iron oxide and platinum (or gold) parts of the heterodimer, respectively. Such an approach allows simple and efficient preparation of amphiphilic structures. Moreover, liquid-air interface self-assembly studies of each ligand exchange step revealed a drastic improvement in film crystallinity, suggesting the dendronization induced improvement of the whole particle polydispersity of the heterodimers.