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Updated: May 22, 2026

Assembly and Characterization of Polyelectrolyte Complex Micelles
Published on: March 2, 2020
Molecular nanoworm with PCL core and PEO shell as a non-spherical carrier for drug delivery
Peng Zhao1, Lixin Liu, Xiaoqin Feng
1Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Abstract:
Core/shell wormlike polymer brushes with densely grafted poly(ϵ-caprolactone)-b-poly(ethylene oxide) (PCL-b-PEO) are synthesized via grafting an alkynyl terminated PCL-b-PEO (ay-PCL(17) -b-PEO(113) ) onto a well-defined azido functionalized polymethacrylate (PGA(940) ) and are evaluated preliminarily as a single molecular cylindrical vehicle for drug delivery. Water soluble molecular worms of ca. 230 nm are obtained and then the anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX) is loaded into its PCL core by hydrophobic interaction. Compared with spherical micelles from linear PCL(17) -b-PEO(113) , the brushes demonstrate a lower loading efficiency but a faster release rate of DOX. Confocal laser scanning microscopy measurements show that DOX-loaded cylindrical molecular brushes can easily enter into HeLa and HepG2 cells in 1 h.
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