Abstract
Cationic polymers are often employed in conjugation with nanomaterials, and the resultant hybrids are useful for various bioapplications. Here, a single-step metal-free method for the synthesis of fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs) conjugated with cationic polymer brushes is reported. Distinct from the common methods such as atom transfer radical polymerization and reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer, our ring-opening-polymerization-based method is simple and less time consuming and hazardous. Infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, zeta potential, and dynamic light scattering confirmed the synthesis. The produced FND-polymer brushes showed markedly higher cell labeling and internalization efficiency without noticeable cytotoxicity. Our method is general and applicable to other nanoparticles as well for uses in diverse research areas.
Highlights
Surface modification with cationic polymer brushes is one of the key technologies to control the properties of nanoparticles
We propose a novel synthetic route to produce nanoparticles surface-functionalized with cationic polymer brushes by reacting the particles which have nucleophilic groups and glycidyltrimethylammonium chloride (GTMA) that contains an epoxy ring and a cationic
Scheme 1 shows the synthetic route of two types of fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs) with cationic polymer brushes; (1) polyethylene glycol with trimethylammonium on FND (FND-PEGTMA) and (2) hyperbranched polyglycerol with trimethylammonium on FND (FND-HPGTMA)
Summary
Surface modification with cationic polymer brushes is one of the key technologies to control the properties of nanoparticles. In order to graft cationic polymers on the surface of nanoparticles, atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) [6] and reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization [7] are often used. These methods typically involve several steps of organic synthesis and are time-consuming. The development of a facile, ideally single-step, and metal-free method for producing nanoparticles with cationic polymer brushes has not been reported so far, but is critically important for applications in the life sciences
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