Facile Synthesis of a Phosphorylcholine-Based Zwitterionic Amphiphilic Copolymer for Anti-Biofouling Coatings.

An antibiofouling polymer coating, combined with both zwitterionic and amphiphilic features, is engineered by a two-step modification of a commodity polymer. The surface properties of the resultant polymer coating can be easily tuned by varying the extent of cross-linking in the network. Higher antibiofouling efficiency was observed for these surfaces vs.

Multi-responsive Hydrogels Derived from the Self-assembly of Tethered Allyl-functionalized Racemic Oligopeptides.

A multi-responsive triblock hydrogelator oligo(dl-allylglycine)--poly(ethylene glycol)-oligo(dl-allylglycine) (ODLAG--PEG--ODLAG) was synthesized facilely by ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of DLAG -carboxyanhydride (NCA) with a diamino-terminated PEG as the macroinitiator. This system exhibited heat-induced sol-to-gel transitions and either sonication- or enzyme-induced gel-to-sol transitions. The -sheeting of the oligopeptide segments was confirmed by attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS).

Hyperbranched fluoropolymer-polydimethylsiloxane-poly(ethylene glycol) cross-linked terpolymer networks designed for marine and biomedical applications: heterogeneous nontoxic antibiofouling surfaces.

Synthesis of terpolymer coatings composed of hyperbranched fluoropolymers cross-linked with bisamino-propyl poly(ethylene glycol) and bisamino-propyl polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was performed to generate antibiofouling surfaces. Nanoscale imaging and surface spectroscopy confirmed that this system possessed complex surface topographies and chemical compositions. Surface complexity was determined to be due to molecular interactions, phase segregation, and compositional gradients arising between the three components.

Dual peptide nucleic acid- and peptide-functionalized shell cross-linked nanoparticles designed to target mRNA toward the diagnosis and treatment of acute lung injury.

In this work, multifunctional biosynthetic hybrid nanostructures were prepared and studied for their potential utility in the recognition and inhibition of mRNA sequences for inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), which are overexpressed at sites of inflammation, such as in cases of acute lung injury. Shell cross-linked knedel-like polymer nanoparticles (SCKs) that present peptide nucleic acids, for binding to complementary mRNAs, and cell penetrating peptides (CPPs), to gain cell entry, along with fluorescent labels and sites for radiolabeling, were prepared by a series of robust, efficient, and versatile synthetic steps that proceeded from monomers to polymers to functional nanoparticles. Amphiphilic block graft copolymers having combinations of methoxy- and thioacetyl-terminated poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and DOTA-lysine units grafted from the backbone of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and extending with a backbone segment of poly(octadecyl acrylate-co-decyl acrylate) (P(ODA-co-DA)) were prepared by a combination of reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization and chemical modification reactions, which were then used as the building blocks for the formation of well-defined SCKs decorated with reactive thiols accessible to the surface.