Glycopolymer‐Grafted Polystyrene Nanospheres

The synthesis and characterization of spherical sugar‐containing polymer brushes consisting of PS cores onto which chains of sugar‐containing polymers have been grafted via two different techniques are described. Photopolymerization in aqueous dispersion using the functional monomer MAGlc and crosslinked or non‐crosslinked PS particles covered with a thin layer of photo‐initiator yielded homogeneous glycopolymer brushes attached to spherical PS cores. As an alternative, ATRP was used to graft poly‐( N ‐acetylglucosamine) arms from crosslinked PS cores. Deprotection of the grafted brushes led to water‐soluble particles that act as carriers for catalytically active gold nanoparticles. These glycopolymer chains show a high affinity to adsorb WGA whereas no binding to BSA or PNA could be detected.