title: Self-assembled, thermosensitive micelles of a star block copolymer based on PMMA and PNIPAAm for controlled drug delivery.
abstract: A four-arm star block copolymer, comprised of a hydrophobic PMMA arm and an average of three hydrophilic poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) arms were designed and synthesized from the molecular level. The amphiphilic star block copolymer is capable of self-assembling into micelles in water, which was confirmed by FT-IR, (1)H NMR and fluorescence spectroscopy. Transmission electron microscopy images showed that these nanoparticles were regularly spherical in shape. The micelles showed reversible dispersion/aggregation in response to temperature cycles through an outer polymer shell lower critical solution temperature (LCST) for PNIPAAm at around 34 degrees C, observed by optical absorbance measurements. Resulted polymeric micelles loaded with prednisone acetate showed a much improved drug release behavior due to the special micellar structure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry & Key Laboratory of Biomedical Polymers of Ministry of Education, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, PR China.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Xianzheng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Cheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Si-Xue
authors.initials: SX
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Ren-Xi
authors.initials: RX
authors.lastname: Zhuo
mesh_terms: D000180:Acrylic Resins / Q000737:chemistry*; D003692:Delayed-Action Preparations / Q000737:chemistry*; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D008823:Micelles; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D015394:Molecular Structure; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry; D019904:Polymethyl Methacrylate / Q000737:chemistry*; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D000180:Acrylic Resins; D003692:Delayed-Action Preparations; D008823:Micelles; C052970:poly-N-isopropylacrylamide; D019904:Polymethyl Methacrylate