New Amphiphilic Dendrimers for Encapsulation and Release

描述（由申请人提供）：使用共价和非共价力的官能团组织在几乎所有生物事件中都起着重要作用。大自然为这些提供了很好的例子，在蛋白质中有精美的功能基团组织。这一建议的重点是设计和合成一类新的树状大分子，其灵感来自球状蛋白。像球状蛋白一样，这些分子在表面上是亲两性的；即大分子具有亲水的外部和疏水的核心。此外，随着环境的变化，这些分子有可能转变为具有疏水外部和亲水核心的树状大分子。研究这些树状大分子的构象转换过程可以为自然界中发生的类似过程提供有价值的信息。所提出的树状大分子应该被用作肿瘤细胞的药物递送载体。虽然靶向药物递送不是本提案的具体目标，但将研究获得这种可能性的原理证明的实验。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Functional group organizations using covalent and non-covalent forces play an important role in almost all the biological events. Nature provides fine examples of these with the exquisite functional group organization in proteins. This proposal focuses on the design and synthesis of a new class of dendrimers that are inspired by globular proteins. Like globular proteins, these molecules are facially amphiphilic; i.e. the macromolecules have a hydrophilic exterior and a hydrophobic core. In addition, these molecules have the potential to be switched to a dendrimer with a hydrophobic exterior and hydrophilic core upon change in the environment. Study of the conformational switching processes in these dendrimers could provide valuable information on similar processes that occur in nature. The proposed dendrimers should find use as drug delivery vehicles for tumor cells. Although targeted drug delivery is not a specific goal for this proposal, experiments to obtain the proof-of-principle for the possibility will be investigated.