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Polymer brushes engineered to "specifically capture" and "release on demand" analytes such as dyes, proteins, and cells find biomedical applications ranging from protein immobilization to cell death. Utilizing a disulfide-linker-containing monomer as a building block enables the fabrication of a redox-responsive polymer brush platform with the "catch and release" attribute. Herein, thiol-reactive redox-responsive polymer brushes are fabricated using a pyridyl disulfide-based monomer, and their postpolymerization functionalization is demonstrated via thiol-disulfide exchange reaction with thiol-containing dyes, (bio)molecules, and cell adhesive ligands. After establishing reversible conjugation using a fluorescent dye and other model compounds, copolymer brushes postmodified with thiol-containing mannose demonstrated selective immobilization of concanavalin A in the presence of peanut agglutinin. In addition, a thiolated RGD peptide was conjugated to the side chain of polymer brushes to facilitate cell adhesion, followed by on-demand harvesting. To enable localized drug delivery to surface-adhered cells, orthogonal chain end and side chain functionalization using the thiol-Michael addition and thiol-disulfide exchange reaction, respectively, was used to conjugate the cell adhesive RGD peptide and the anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX). On-demand DOX release and internalization by surface-bound cancer cells were demonstrated via cleavage of disulfide linkages in the presence of a reducing agent. This approach may provide an attractive methodology to deliver therapeutic agents precisely to specific cells.
Degirmenci et al. (Thu,) studied this question.