Hydroxyl-terminated dendritic oligomers from bile acids: synthesis and properties

[reaction: see text] The high reactivity of the chloroacetyl group has been exploited for the synthesis of bile acid based first and second generation dendrons with multiple hydroxyl groups. The synthesis involves only a few steps and avoids the use of protecting groups for the terminal hydroxyl groups. These dendritic structures with facially amphiphilic bile acid backbones on the periphery were able to solubilize cresol red, a hydrophilic dye, in a nonpolar solvent. HPLC analysis of the dendrons suggests that hydrophobicity increases with increase in oligomer size, but in each generation, the dendrons with a higher degree of branching are less hydrophobic.