English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Zendy Open

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Insights

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Zendy Tools

Zendy Plus

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Compared to linear polymers with the same molecular weight, star-shaped polymers have the superiority of drug loading and delivery. The glycyrrhetinic acid (GA) from licorice is remarkably characteristic of liver distribution and liver cells targetability. In this paper, four-armed star-shaped polycaprolactone was synthesized and amino polyethylene glycol was modified by glycyrrhetinic acid (NH2-PEG-GA). Then the condensation reaction between the two above polymers finally produced four-armed star-shaped poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(ε-caprolactone) block copolymer (sPCL-b-PEG-GA). The structures of the intermediates and product were characterized by 1H NMR. The results indicated that the structure and molecular weight of sPCL-b-PEG-GA can be controlled by the varied ratios of pentaerythritol (PTOL) to ε-caprolactone (ε-CL) in the presence of stannous octoate (Sn(Oct)2), and the amphiphilic copolymer sPCL-b-PEG-GA consists of PTOL as core, PCL as inner hydrophobic segments, PEG as external hydrophilic segments, and terminal glycyrrhetic acid as targeting ligand. The work explored a new synthesis route of star poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(ε-caprolactone) copolymer with liver targetability. The star-shaped polymer is expected to be an efficient drug carrier.

Synthesis and Characterization of Star-Shaped Block Copolymer sPCL-b-PEG-GA