Stereoselective Stabilization of Polymeric Vitamin E Conjugate Micelles

Vitamin E (α-tocopherol; TPGS) micelle is a robust nanocarrier in delivering hydrophobic active pharmaceutical ingredients, but it is suffering from poor stability that is essential in terms of pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. Taking advantage of the chirality of vitamin E, this work reports the stereoselective stabilization of polymer-vitamin E conjugate micelles. Vitamin E was covalently linked to multivalent methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-co-poly(glutamic acid), generating amphiphilic conjugates that could self-assemble into micelles. Eight types of micelles were produced via tailored combination of polymer backbone and side chain with different chirality. The particle size and critical micelle concentration analysis demonstrated a correlation between conjugate chirality and micelle stability. The most stable micelles were obtained when poly(glutamic acid) and vitamin E both are dextrorotatory, because of the high degree of α-helix revealed by both circular dichroism spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulation. This phenomenon was further verified by the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) analysis in HepG2 cells. The current work not only provides a method to enhance the stability of vitamin E micelles, but also adds an additional facile tool in regulating the stability of polymer conjugate micelles without changing the conjugate composition.