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An Oxygen‐Tolerant PET‐RAFT Polymerization for Screening Structure–Activity Relationships
Author(s) -
Gormley Adam J.,
Yeow Jonathan,
Ng Gervase,
Conway Órla,
Boyer Cyrille,
Chapman Robert
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.201711044
Subject(s) - raft , chain transfer , polymer , polymerization , rational design , reversible addition−fragmentation chain transfer polymerization , chemistry , concanavalin a , combinatorial chemistry , polymer chemistry , photochemistry , materials science , radical polymerization , nanotechnology , organic chemistry , biochemistry , in vitro
The complexity of polymer–protein interactions makes rational design of the best polymer architecture for any given biointerface extremely challenging, and the high throughput synthesis and screening of polymers has emerged as an attractive alternative. A porphyrin‐catalysed photoinduced electron/energy transfer–reversible addition‐fragmentation chain‐transfer (PET‐RAFT) polymerisation was adapted to enable high throughput synthesis of complex polymer architectures in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) on low‐volume well plates in the presence of air. The polymerisation system shows remarkable oxygen tolerance, and excellent control of functional 3‐ and 4‐arm star polymers. We then apply this method to investigate the effect of polymer structure on protein binding, in this case to the lectin concanavalin A (ConA). Such an approach could be applied to screen the structure–activity relationships for any number of polymer–protein interactions.