Core-Clickable PEG-Branch-Azide Bivalent-Bottle-Brush Polymers by ROMP: Grafting-Through and Clicking-To

The combination of highly efficient polymerizations with modular click coupling reactions has enabled the synthesis of a wide variety of novel nanoscopic structures. Here we demonstrate the facile synthesis of a new class of clickable, branched nanostructures, polyethylene glycol (PEG)-branch-azide bivalent-brush polymers, facilitated by graft-through ring-opening metathesis polymerization of a branched norbornene-PEG-chloride macromonomer followed by halide-azide exchange. The resulting bivalent-brush polymers possess azide groups at the core near a polynorbornene backbone with PEG chains extended into solution; the structure resembles a unimolecular micelle. We demonstrate copper-catalyzed azide-alkre cycloaddition (CuAAC) click-to coupling of a photocleavable doxorubicin (DOX)-alkyne derivative to the azide core. The CuAAC coupling was quantitative across a wide range of nanoscopic sizes (similar to 6-similar to 50 nrn); UV photolysis of the resulting DOX-loaded materials yielded free DOX that was therapeutically effective against human cancer cells.