Recent advances towards applications of molecular bottlebrushes and their conjugates

We focus on the most recent developments towards synthesis, modeling, and applications of molecular bottlebrushes. Unique structural characteristics and properties of the bottlebrushes along with an ability to synthetically tailor their structure and functionality open up a number of emergent applications of these polymer systems. The conformation and resulting properties of molecular bottlebrushes and multi-component assemblies encompassing bottlebrushes can be regulated via chemical nature of the backbone and side moieties of bottlebrushes, variation of the distance between grafting points of the side groups, and the degree of polymerization of the side chains. Herein, we highlight the most recent progress in relating the structure of the bottlebrushes with their properties and focus on a number of diverse emerging applications involving bottlebrushes in solvents, melts, and bottlebrushes conjugated with surfaces, interfaces, linear chains, or biomacromolecules. Among such applications are drug delivery and sensing applications, electronic and photonic materials and materials with strain-adaptive stiffening, thermal stabilization and enhancement of activity of enzymes conjugated with copolymer bottlebrushes, and surface modification for biomedical applications.