Center for Advanced Materials , Qatar University , P.O. Box 2713, Doha , Qatar.
Polymer Institute , Slovak Academy of Sciences , Dúbravská cesta 9 , 84541 Bratislava , Slovak Republic.
Langmuir. 2019 Feb 5;35(5):1391-1403. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.8b01592. Epub 2018 Sep 6.
A procedure for the preparation of copolymers bearing sulfobetaine and carboxybetaine methacrylic-based monomers by free-radical polymerization is described and discussed. A combination of monomers affects the upper critical solution temperature (UCST) in water and in the presence of a simple NaCl electrolyte while retaining the zwitterionic character. In addition, hydrogel samples were prepared and showed tunable water structure and mechanical properties. The total nonfreezable water content decreases with the amount of carboxybetaine segment in the hydrogel feed and the compression moduli were in a range of 0.7-1.6 MPa. Responses to external conditions such as temperature and ion strength were investigated and a potential application such as modulated thermal detection is proposed. The presence of the carboxylate group in the carboxybetaine segment enables a small fluorescence probe and peptide bearing RDG motif to be attached to polymer and hydrogel samples, respectively. The hydrogel samples functionalized with the RGD motif exhibit controlled cell adhesion. Such synthetic strategy based on combination of different zwitterionic segments offers a simple pathway for the development of zwitterionic materials with programmable properties.
描述并讨论了通过自由基聚合制备带有磺酸甜菜碱和羧酸甜菜碱甲基丙烯基单体的共聚物的方法。单体的组合影响水和存在简单 NaCl 电解质中的上临界溶解温度 (UCST)，同时保留两性离子特性。此外，还制备了水凝胶样品，显示出可调节的水结构和机械性能。水凝胶进料中羧酸甜菜碱段的含量增加会导致总不可冻结水含量减少，压缩模量在 0.7-1.6 MPa 范围内。研究了对外界条件（如温度和离子强度）的响应，并提出了调制热检测等潜在应用。羧酸甜菜碱段中的羧酸根使小荧光探针和带有 RDG 基序的肽能够分别连接到聚合物和水凝胶样品上。用 RGD 基序官能化的水凝胶样品表现出受控的细胞黏附。这种基于组合不同两性离子段的合成策略为开发具有可编程性质的两性离子材料提供了一种简单途径。
