Department of Biomedical Engineering , Carnegie Mellon University , Scott Hall 4N201, 5000 Forbes Avenue , Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania 15213 , United States.
Center for Polymer-Based Protein Engineering , Carnegie Mellon University , 5000 Forbes Avenue , Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania 15213 , United States.
Biomacromolecules. 2019 Dec 9;20(12):4272-4298. doi: 10.1021/acs.biomac.9b01271. Epub 2019 Nov 18.
Proteins, nucleic acids, lipid vesicles, and carbohydrates are the major classes of biomacromolecules that function to sustain life. Biology also uses post-translation modification to increase the diversity and functionality of these materials, which has inspired attaching various other types of polymers to biomacromolecules. These polymers can be naturally (carbohydrates and biomimetic polymers) or synthetically derived and have unique properties with tunable architectures. Polymers are either grafted-to or grown-from the biomacromolecule's surface, and characteristics including polymer molar mass, grafting density, and degree of branching can be controlled by changing reaction stoichiometries. The resultant conjugated products display a chimerism of properties such as polymer-induced enhancement in stability with maintained bioactivity, and while polymers are most often conjugated to proteins, they are starting to be attached to nucleic acids and lipid membranes (cells) as well. The fundamental studies with protein-polymer conjugates have improved our synthetic approaches, characterization techniques, and understanding of structure-function relationships that will lay the groundwork for creating new conjugated biomacromolecular products which could lead to breakthroughs in genetic and tissue engineering.
蛋白质、核酸、脂质体和碳水化合物是维持生命的主要生物大分子类别。生物学还利用翻译后修饰来增加这些材料的多样性和功能，这启发了将各种其他类型的聚合物附着到生物大分子上。这些聚合物可以是天然的（碳水化合物和仿生聚合物）或合成的，具有可调节结构的独特性质。聚合物要么接枝到生物大分子表面上，要么从其表面生长出来，通过改变反应化学计量，可以控制聚合物摩尔质量、接枝密度和支化度等特性。由此产生的共轭产物表现出一种杂种性质，例如聚合物诱导的稳定性增强，同时保持生物活性，而且聚合物通常与蛋白质共轭，但现在也开始与核酸和脂质膜（细胞）结合。与蛋白质-聚合物缀合物相关的基础研究提高了我们的合成方法、表征技术和对结构-功能关系的理解，这将为创造新的共轭生物大分子产品奠定基础，从而可能在基因和组织工程方面取得突破。
