Perspectives on dendritic architectures and their biological applications: From core to cell

The challenges of medicine today include the increasing stipulation for sensitive and effective systems that can improve the pathological responses with a simultaneous reduction in accumulation and drug side effects. The demand can be fulfilled through the advancements in nanomedicine that includes nanostructures and nanodevices for diagnosing, treating, and prevention of various diseases. In this respect, the nanoscience provides various novel techniques with carriers such as micelles, dendrimers, particles and vesicles for the transportation of active moieties. Further, an efficient way to improve these systems is through stimuli a responsive system that utilizes supramolecular hyperbranched structures to meet the above criteria. The stimuli-responsive dendritic architectures exhibit spatial, temporal, convenient, effective, safety and controlled drug release in response to specific trigger through electrostatic interactions plus π stacking. The stimuli-responsive systems are capable of sequestering the drug molecules underneath a predefined set of conditions and discharge them in a different environment through either exogenous or endogenous stimulus. The incorporation of photoresponsive moieties at various components of dendrimer such as core, branches or at the peripheral end exaggerates its significance in various allied fields of nanotechnology which includes sensors, photoswitch, electronic widgets and in drug delivery systems. This is due to the light instigated geometrical modifications at the core or at the surface molecules which generates huge conformational changes throughout the hyperbranched structure. Further, numerous synthetic methodologies have been investigated for utilization of dendrimers in therapeutic drug delivery and its applicability towards stimuli responsive systems such as photo-instigated, thermal-instigated, and pH-instigated hyperbranched structures and their advancement in the field of nanomedicine. This paper highlights the fascinating theoretical advances and principal mechanisms of dendrimer synthesis and their ability to capture light that strengthens its applicability from radiant energy to medical photonics.

Trans-cis isomerization of arylether dendrimers with azobenzene core and terminal hydroxy groups

Azobenzene-cored arylether dendrimers 2a-2c with polar hydroxy groups at the periphery have been prepared from hydroboration-oxidation reaction of azobenzene-cored arylether dendrimers 1a-1c with nonpolar vinyl groups at the periphery. Trans-->cis photoisomerization of central azo group has been investigated by UV-vis spectral changes after photolysis. The results show that dendrimers 1a-1c and 2a-2c in methanol/dichloromethane (1/1, v/v) have carried out trans-cis isomerization. Reaction rate for trans-->cis photoisomerization of 2a-2c with polar hydroxy groups increases with increasing generation upon irradiation of 350 nm. On the other hand, the reaction rate of cis-->trans thermal back isomerization for 2a-2c decreases with increasing the generation. This result is somewhat different from that for 1a-1c with nonpolar vinyl groups. Both the reaction rates of trans-->cis photoisomerization and cis-->trans thermal back isomerization for 1a-1c decrease in higher generation.