Department of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue School of Engineering and Technology, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202, United States.
ACS Macro Lett. 2021 Mar 16;10(3):341-345. doi: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.1c00056. Epub 2021 Feb 9.
An alternate synthesis route was developed to prepare norbornene-functionalized poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) from reacting multiarm PEG with carbic anhydride. The macromer, PEGNB, permits photo-cross-linking of thiol-norbornene hydrogels with kinetics comparable to conventional PEGNB macromer. In addition, PEGNB provides an additional carboxylate group for further conjugation with amine-bearing molecules. Interestingly, PEGNB thiol-norbornene hydrogels are highly susceptible to hydrolytic degradation through enhanced ester hydrolysis. The ester linkage is further weakened after the secondary conjugation, resulting in extremely rapid degradation of PEGNB hydrogels. More importantly, the degradation can be readily adjusted via tuning macromer compositions, with complete degradation time ranging from hours to weeks. The PEGNB hydrogels are also highly cytocompatible toward various cell types, providing opportunities for future applications in tissue engineering and advanced biofabrication.
开发了一种替代的合成路线，通过多臂聚乙二醇与碳酸酐反应来制备降冰片烯官能化的聚乙二醇（PEG）。大分子单体 PEGNB 允许巯基-降冰片烯水凝胶与传统的 PEGNB 大分子单体相媲美进行光交联。此外，PEGNB 为进一步与带有胺的分子进行共轭提供了额外的羧酸盐基团。有趣的是，PEGNB 巯基-降冰片烯水凝胶通过增强的酯水解对水解降解非常敏感。在二次共轭后，酯键进一步减弱，导致 PEGNB 水凝胶的降解极其迅速。更重要的是，通过调整大分子单体的组成，可以很容易地调节降解，完全降解时间从几小时到几周不等。PEGNB 水凝胶对各种细胞类型也具有高度的细胞相容性，为未来在组织工程和高级生物制造中的应用提供了机会。
