Abstract
Shape-memory polymers have seen tremendous research efforts driven by the need for better drug carries and biomedical devices. In contrast to these advancements, fabrication of shape-memory particles which actuate at body temperature remains scarce. We developed a shape-memory microparticle system with dynamically tunable shapes under physiological temperature. Temperature-responsive poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) microparticles were successfully prepared by an in situ oil-in-water (o/w) emulsion polymerization technique using linear telechelic and tetra-branched PCL macromonomers. By optimizing the mixing ratios of branched PCL macromonomers, the crystal-amorphous transition temperature was adjusted to the biological relevant temperature. The particles with a disk-like temporal shape were achieved by compression. The shape recovery from the disk to spherical shape was also realized at 37 °C. We also incorporated magnetic nanoparticles within the PCL microparticles, which can be remote-controllable by a magnet, in such a way that they can be actuated and manipulated in a controlled way.
Highlights
Polymeric micro/nano particles have enjoyed growing interest over the past several decades in drug delivery [1], optical bio-sensors [2], and bio-imaging [3]
We have been demonstrating the potential of SMPs in the area of tissue engineering, mechanobiology, and micro-electro-mechanical systems in the past decade [26,27]
We demonstrated that PCL-based shape-memory shape-memory microparticles exhibited shape recovery from a disk-like temporal shape to spherical microparticles exhibited shape recovery from a disk-like temporal shape to spherical shape at 37 °C
Summary
Polymeric micro/nano particles have enjoyed growing interest over the past several decades in drug delivery [1], optical bio-sensors [2], and bio-imaging [3]. In many of these applications, the ability to change chemical or physical properties in response to an external stimulus is greatly desired. Thermally responsive, crystalline polymers are known to exhibit shape memorizing abilities. The shape memory effect in an uncrosslinked crystalline polymer has been reported [5], it was shown to have relatively low values of shape memory performance compared to that of the crosslinked one. Continuous efforts have been devoted into modifying existing SMPs and developing new ones for tailored properties and special functions such as photo-responsive or chemo-responsive SMPs [8,9,10,11,12,13]
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