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起重要作用。自然界提供了很好的例子，蛋白质中精致的官能团组织。该提案的重点是设计和合成一类新的树枝状聚合物，灵感来自球状蛋白质。像球状蛋白质一样，这些分子是表面两亲性的;即大分子具有亲水性外部和疏水性核心。此外，这些分子具有在环境变化时转换为具有疏水外部和亲水核心的树枝状聚合物的潜力。这些树枝状大分子的构象转换过程的研究可以提供有价值的信息，在自然界中发生的类似过程。所提出的树枝状聚合物应该可以用作肿瘤细胞的药物递送载体。虽然靶向药物递送不是该提议的具体目标，但将研究获得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.