3909115

Poly(amino acid)s: From nutrition to the biomedical arena

Date
August 13, 2023
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Poly(amino acid)s, PAAs, are built from amino acid monomers, but they lack the sequence specificity that is characteristic for proteins and peptides, as they usually consist of only one or two different amino acids. Poly(amino acid)s occur naturally; e.g. poly(g-glutamic acid) is the main component of natto, a Japanese staple food or they can be synthesized from the respective amino acids to form linear polymers, copolymers, block copolymers, dendrimers, dendrigrafts or hyperbranched polymers. An exceptional control over molecular weight and polydispersity of PAAs can be achieved, since amino acid N-carboxyanhydride monomers lend themselves to living ring-opening polymerizations, which also enable the formation of block copolymers. PAA copolymers and block copolymers have been studied by our group for (i) the modification of implants making use of the affinity of the thiol group in cysteine for gold, (ii) the modification of ceramic monolith making use of the ability of amino acids with reactive side groups to bind enzyme-specific ligands for protein purification, (iii) delivery vehicles for nucleic acids making use of the ability of poly(L-Lysine) to condense DNA, and (iv) delivery vehicles for imaging agents making use of the ability of hydrophobic PAAs to “cradle” and separate hydrophobically coated magnetite nanoparticles.

Presenter

Speaker Image for Carmen Scholz
Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville

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