Solid-phase dendrimer synthesis

Abstract

Dendrimers are highly ordered, hyperbranched polymers with potential for a whole range of chemical applications. Solution-phase synthesis of dendrimers is often challenging, requiring long reaction times and nontrivial purification; solid-phase methodology, on the other hand, enables reactions to be driven to completion by using a large excess of reagents with trivial purification. In this paper we show that polyamidoamine dendrimers may be synthesized conveniently and efficiently on a solid support, and that these molecules are of good homogeneity as characterized by 1H- and 13C-nmr and electrospray mass spectrometry. These solid-phase dendrimers were used as a bead loading amplification tool in the synthesis of a hexapeptide library (Xaa–Gly–Gly–Phe–Leu–Lys) to allow single bead analysis as well as allowing the efficient synthesis of two dendrimer conjugates (Leu–enkephalin–Lys and Chlorambucil). This demonstrated that peptides and small drug molecules can be grown directly onto the dendrimer or onto a linker attached to the dendrimer periphery, enhancing general dendrimer utility. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Biopoly 47: 381–396, 1998