What is Polycaprolactone?
Polycaprolactone (PCL, Polycaprolactone) is a poly-α-hydroxy semi-crystalline linear aliphatic polyester with good hydrophobicity, flexibility, biocompatibility and degradability. The preparation method of PCL is generally synthesized by ring-opening polymerization of Ɛ-caprolactone, so the molecular chain contains multiple repeating units of caprolactone (C6H10O2)n. The length (n) of the PCL chain or the corresponding molecular weight of the polymer determines the time and persistence of its hydrolytic degradation through ester bonds. Compared with other biodegradable materials, PCL has better viscoelasticity and is easy to process or manufacture into various shapes, such as microspheres, fibers, micelles, films, foams, etc.
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What Material is Made of Polycaprolactone?
As a representative flowering plant, dandelion's flower head is composed of very small seeds with white pappus. It has a good spatial organization structure and looks like a flower. When they mature, the crested seeds easily detach from the flower heads, glide on the wind, and spread to distant areas to nurture new life.
Some researchers have used polycaprolactone as a raw material using a bionic self-assembly method to successfully construct Dandelion Flower-like Micelles (DFMs) with good spatial organization. The dandelion flower-like micelles are assembled from surface cross-linked micelles (SCMs) functionalized with polycaprolactone (PCL). SCMs are covalently trapped small molecule micelles, which are self-assembled from low molecular weight (<1000.0 Da) amphiphilic molecules. SCMs have the characteristics of easy synthesis, multivalent modification, high stability or sensitivity to specific stimuli, and high drug loading capacity. Therefore, SCMs are widely used in fields such as molecular imprinting platforms, drug delivery, fluorescent probes, light harvesting, and catalysis.
In this study, SCMs serve as the hydrophilic head of super-amphiphilic molecules to construct DFMs through a self-assembly process, simulating the structure of natural dandelion flowers. Under reducing stimulation conditions, DFMs can quickly release SCMs, similar to how dandelion seeds are blown away by wind. Nanoparticle tracking analysis shows that the released SCMs can perform non-Brownian motion with orientation (0.612 ± 0.129) at an average speed of 19.09 μm s-1. Model evaluation of Multicellular Tumor Spheroids (MTSs) in solution also showed that DFMs can disperse SCMs over long distances, achieving deep penetration and effective distribution of SCMs into tumor spheroids. This long-distance release of SCMs by DFMs has potential applications in the treatment of many diseases including cancer, biofilm infections, ophthalmic diseases, etc.
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Reference
- Dandelion Flower-like Micelles
Chem. Sci., 2019
