Poly(2-vinyl-4,4-dimethylazlactone)-functionalized magnetic nanoparticles as carriers for enzyme immobilization and...

Fabrication of various efficient enzyme reactors has triggered increasing interests for its extensive applications in biological and clinical research. In this study, magnetic nanoparticles were functionalized by a biocompatible reactive polymer, poly(2-vinyl-4,4-dimethylazlactone), which was synthesized by reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization. Then, the prepared polymer-modified magnetic nanoparticles were employed as favorable carriers for enzyme immobilization. l-Asparaginase was selected as the model enzyme to fabricate the enzyme reactor, and the prepared enzyme reactor exhibited high loading capacity of 318.0 μg mg(-1) magnetic nanoparticle. Interestingly, it has been observed that the enzymolysis efficiency increased slightly with the lengthened polymer chain, resulting from the increased immobilization amount of enzyme. Meanwhile, the immobilized enzyme could retain more than 95.7% activity after 10 repeated uses and maintain more than 72.6% activity after 10 weeks storage. Moreover, an extracorporeal shunt system was simulated to estimate the potential application capability of the prepared l-asparaginase reactor in acute lymphoblastic leukemia treatment.