New Amphiphilic Dendrimers for Encapsulation and Release

描述(申请人提供)：使用共价力和非共价力的官能团组织在几乎所有的生物事件中都发挥着重要的作用。自然界提供了蛋白质中精致的官能团组织的很好的例子。这项建议的重点是设计和合成一类受球状蛋白启发的新型树枝状大分子。像球状蛋白质一样，这些分子在表面上是两亲性的；即大分子有一个亲水的外表和一个疏水的核心。此外，随着环境的变化，这些分子有可能被转换为具有疏水外壳和亲水核心的树枝状大分子。研究这些树枝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。建议的树枝状大分子应该可以用作肿瘤细胞的药物输送载体。尽管靶向给药不是这项提议的具体目标，但将对获得这种可能性的原则证明的实验进行调查。

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.