Centre of Polymer and Carbon Materials, Polish Academy of Sciences, M. Curie-Skłodowskiej 34 Street, 41-819, Zabrze, Poland.
School of Biology, Chemistry, and Forensic Science, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Wolverhampton, Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1SB, UK.
J Am Soc Mass Spectrom. 2017 Oct;28(10):2223-2234. doi: 10.1007/s13361-017-1731-y. Epub 2017 Jul 10.
The novel copolymers composed of poly-γ-glutamic acid (γ-PGA) and oligoesters have been developed. The structures of the obtained copolymers including variety of end groups were determined at the molecular level with the aid of electrospray ionization multistage mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). The fragmentation experiment performed for the selected sodium adducts of the copolymers confirmed that the developed methods lead to the formation of graft copolymers composed of poly-γ-glutamic acid (γ-PGA) backbone and oligoesters pendant chains. Moreover, it was established that fragmentation of selected sodium adducts of graft copolymers proceeded via random breakage of amide bonds along the backbone and ester bonds of the oligoesters pendant chains. Considering potential applications of the synthesized copolymers in the area of biomaterials, the hydrolytic degradation under laboratory conditions and in vitro cytotoxicity tests were performed. The ESI-MS technique applied in this study has been proven to be a useful tool in structural studies of novel graft copolymers as well as their degradation products. Graphical Abstract ᅟ.
已开发出由聚-γ-谷氨酸（γ-PGA）和低聚物组成的新型共聚物。借助电喷雾电离多级质谱（ESI-MS），在分子水平上确定了获得的共聚物的结构，包括各种端基。对选定的共聚物的钠加合物进行的碎裂实验证实，所开发的方法导致形成由聚-γ-谷氨酸（γ-PGA）主链和低聚物支链组成的接枝共聚物。此外，还确定了接枝共聚物的选定钠加合物的碎裂是通过沿着主链和低聚物支链的酯键随机断裂酰胺键进行的。考虑到合成共聚物在生物材料领域的潜在应用，在实验室条件下和体外细胞毒性测试下进行了水解降解。本研究中应用的 ESI-MS 技术已被证明是研究新型接枝共聚物及其降解产物的结构的有用工具。
