Refining the Design of Diblock Elastin-Like Polypeptides for Self-Assembly into Nanoparticles.

Michèle Dai,Guillaume Goudounet,Sébastien Lecommandoux,Jan C M Van Hest,Jan Pille,Evangelos Georgilis,Xavier Schultze,Elisabeth Garanger,Bertrand Garbay

doi:10.3390/polym13091470

Abstract

Diblock copolymers based-on elastin-like polypeptide (ELP) have the potential to undergo specific phase transitions when thermally stimulated. This ability is especially suitable to form carriers, micellar structures for instance, for delivering active cargo molecules. Here, we report the design and study of an ELP diblock library based on ELP-[M1V3-i]-[I-j]. First, ELP-[M1V3-i]-[I-j] (i = 20, 40, 60; j = 20, 90) that showed a similar self-assembly propensity (unimer-to-aggregate transition) as their related monoblocks ELP-[M1V3-i] and ELP-[I-j]. By selectively oxidizing methionines of ELP-[M1V3-i] within the different diblocks structures, we have been able to access a thermal phase transition with three distinct regimes (unimers, micelles, aggregates) characteristic of well-defined ELP diblocks.

Highlights

IntroductionThermoresponsive polymers are attractive smart materials, in particular for applications in biomedical sciences (i.e., biomedicine)
To understand the thermal behavior of elastin-like polypeptide (ELP)-[M1 V3 -i]-[I-20] diblocks (i = 20, 40, 60), two libraries of individual monoblocks based on ELP-[M1 V3 -i] (i = 20, 40, 60, 80, 100)
Genes were constructed by recursive directional ligation, inserted in E. coli bacteria and proteins produced from selected bacterial clones following previously reported procedures (Table 1) [41,43]

Summary

Introduction

Thermoresponsive polymers are attractive smart materials, in particular for applications in biomedical sciences (i.e., biomedicine). They exhibit a reversible phase transition behavior in aqueous medium upon temperature changes and come in two categories, namely, those that become soluble above an upper critical solution temperature (UCST) and those that aggregate above a lower critical solution temperature (LCST) [1,2,3,4]. The thermal phase transition of these polymers in aqueous solutions has been and is still extensively studied, and significant efforts in terms of design and synthesis are provided to fine tune their physico-chemical characteristics in relevance with biomedical applications, namely in temperature ranges close to physiological body temperature

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Results

Conclusion