Deprotection-Induced Micellization of Glycopolymers: Control of Kinetics and Morphologies

Abstract

In recent years, self-assembly of block or graft copolymers with sugar-containing component has drawn great attention. We just reported that protection–deprotection chemistry could initiate self-assembly of glycopolymers based on the high polarity change induced by the deprotection. Considering that the protection–deprotection is so common and its variety in glycochemistry, it is worth developing this finding into a new and general strategy of self-assembly of glyco-containing polymers. For this purpose, this article focuses on the kinetics and morphology control of the assemblies of glyco-block copolymers induced by the deprotection. Benzoyl (Bz) as the protective group was introduced, which has much lower deprotection rate than acetyl group (Ac) reported previously. Thus, the detailed kinetic study of the self-assembly of Bz copolymer by means of in situ light scattering and 1H NMR, etc., became possible. The morphologies of all of the resultant assemblies were observed by cryo-TEM. Thus, we found that ...