Polylactic Acid Derivatives with Cross-Linkable Groups for Surgical Adhesives

描述（由申请人提供）：目前的生物相容性聚合物系统正用于受控药物递送、组织工程支架和结构支撑。这些生物相容性聚合物提供组织相容性、可接受的机械性能和低毒性。尽管在这一领域已经取得了许多进展，但为了开发新的外科粘合剂、无污染表面和组织工程支架，非常需要新的聚合物系统。我们的实验室一直在设计和合成新的生物相容性聚合物系统。我们的灵感来自海洋生物粘合剂。由海洋贻贝产生的粘合剂是基于蛋白质的交联基质。我们已经开发出生物系统的合成聚合物模拟物。本文提出的工作目标是设计新的交联聚合物，用于外科粘合剂。为了做到这一点，我们将设计和合成含有生物交联基团的聚合物。这些交联基团将被置于标准聚合物主链中，从而产生海洋生物粘合剂的模拟物。我们建议使用几种模拟氨基酸的交叉修饰基团（例如，邻苯二酚）与聚乳酸（PLA）为骨架。所得材料将表现出改善的机械和生物相容性。我们的实验室将进行研究，以了解不同的交联基团（邻苯二酚，硫醇，胺）的存在如何影响这种共聚物的粘合性能。这些聚合物的实用性将通过合成途径对聚合物组成变化的可调性来增强。这些新聚合物的合成对于开发新的外科粘合剂和组织工程支架至关重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Current biocompatible polymer systems are being used for controlled drug delivery, scaffolds in tissue engineering and structural supports. These biocompatible polymers provide tissue compatibility, acceptable mechanical properties and low toxicity. Although many of advances have been made in this field, new polymeric systems are very much needed in order to develop new surgical adhesives, nonfouling surfaces and tissue engineering scaffolds. Our laboratory has been designing and synthesizing of new biocompatible polymer systems. We take our inspiration from marine biological adhesives. The adhesive produced by marine mussels is based upon a cross-linked matrix of proteins. We have developed synthetic polymeric mimics of the biological system. The goal of the work proposed here is to design new cross-linking polymers that will be used for surgical adhesives. In order to do so, we will design and synthesize polymers that contain biological cross-linking groups. These cross-linking groups will be placed into standard polymer backbones, thereby generating mimics of marine biological adhesives. We are proposing the use of several cross-linkable groups that mimic amino acids (e.g., catechol) with polylactic acid (PLA) for the backbone. The resulting materials will exhibit improved mechanical and biocompatible properties. Our laboratory will engage in studies to see how the presence of different cross-linkable groups (catechol, thiol, amine) affects the adhesive properties of this copolymer. The utility of these polymers will be enhanced by the tunability from synthetic access to variations in the polymer composition. The synthesis of these new polymers could be essential for development of new surgical adhesives and tissue engineering scaffolds.