title: Dual responsive polymeric nanoparticles prepared by direct functionalization of polylactic acid-based polymers via graft-from ring opening metathesis polymerization.
abstract: Polylactic acid (PLA) has found widespread use in plastics and in biomedical applications due to its biodegradability into natural benign products. However, PLA-based materials remain limited in usefulness due to difficulty of incorporating functional groups into the polymer backbone. In this paper, we report a strategy for PLA functionalization that establishes the preparation of highly derivatized materials in which ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) is employed as a graft-from polymerization technique utilizing a norbornene-modified handle incorporated into the PLA backbone. As a demonstration of this new synthetic methodology, a PLA-derived nanoparticle bearing imidazole units protected with a photolabile group was prepared. The morphology of this material could be controllably altered in response to exposure of UV light or acidic pH as a stimulus. We anticipate that this graft-from approach to derivatization of PLA could find broad use in the development of modified, biodegradable PLA-based materials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. jerryyang@ucsd.edu ngianneschi@ucsd.edu.
authors.forename: Kate M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Veccharelli
authors.forename: Venus K
authors.initials: VK
authors.lastname: Tong
authors.forename: Jennifer L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Young
authors.forename: Jerry
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Nathan C
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Gianneschi