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Curcumin-polymer conjugates with dynamic boronic acid ester linkages for selective killing of cancer cells

Polymer Chemistry, ISSN: 1759-9962, Vol: 11, Issue: 7, Page: 1321-1326
2020
  • 29
    Citations
  • 0
    Usage
  • 26
    Captures
  • 0
    Mentions
  • 0
    Social Media
Metric Options:   Counts1 Year3 Year

Metrics Details

  • Citations
    29
    • Citation Indexes
      29
  • Captures
    26

Article Description

The poor water-solubility of curcumin limits the broad applications of this promising traditional herb. In this study, we developed a strategy to prepare curcumin-polymer conjugates with a dynamic covalent linkage. A phenylboronic acid (PBA)-containing monomer was synthesized via the Hantzsch reaction. This monomer was then copolymerized with a water-soluble monomer through radical polymerization to obtain a water-soluble copolymer. Curcumin was included in this copolymer via covalent linkage between the PBA group in the polymer and 1,3-diketone group in curcumin. The resulting curcumin-polymer conjugate formed stable nanoparticles at pH ∼ 7.4 that quickly decomposed at pH ∼ 5.5. Further, it was found that the curcumin-polymer conjugates could selectively kill different cancer cells, which illustrates the potential of this curcumin-polymer conjugate for cancer therapy. This report is the first to describe a synthetic strategy for curcumin-polymer conjugates involving a dynamic linkage between PBA and curcumin. Thus, the applicability of PBA-containing polymers has been expanded to deliver curcumin for therapeutic applications.

Bibliographic Details

Ruihao Pan; Yuan Zeng; Guoqiang Liu; Yen Wei; Lei Tao; Yanshuang Xu

Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)

Chemical Engineering; Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology; Materials Science; Chemistry

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