ATRP of Methacrylic Derivative of Camptothecin Initiated with PLA toward Three-Arm Star Block Copolymer Conjugates with Favorable Drug Release

Abstract

Three-arm polylactides (PLA) containing 0.2, 7.6, and 13% of d-lactic acid monomeric units were obtained and refunctionalized into ATRP macroinitiators via esterification of hydroxyl groups with 2-bromoisobutyryl bromide. These polymeric matrices underwent enzymatic degradation with various rates and revealed negative results on cytotoxicity and genotoxicity tests. Camptothecin (CPT), which is an anticancer active substance, was transformed into acrylic monomers; however, simple CPT acrylate was not able to polymerization whereas methacrylate with a linker was ready for FRP and ATRP. The latter monomer was used for ATRP initiated with various PLA macroinitiators in order to form block copolymer conjugates of CPT with high load of drug. Based on kinetic studies at various temperatures, it was found out that the polymerization stopped at certain monomer conversion because of the ceiling temperature. The content of CPT in these conjugates was estimated by means of 1H NMR, quadruple detection array GPC, and e...