Dendrimeric molecular transporters: synthesis and evaluation of tunable polyguanidino dendrimers that facilitate cellular uptake.

[reaction: see text] Nine fluorescently labeled structurally varied polyguanidino dendrimers based on diamino acid monomeric units were individually synthesized in an efficient, scalable sequence using a trifluoroacetamide protecting group-perguanidinylation strategy. While the dendrimers varied significantly in their ability to enter a human lymphocyte cell line, the best transporters out-performed an oligoarginine reference standard.