A Water-Soluble Copolymer with Pendant Perfluorocarbon Groups as an In Vivo Artificial Oxygen Carrier

Perfluorocarbons have been identified as potential artificial oxygen carriers in the past but are quickly eliminated from the body in minutes or a few hours. Synthesis and characterization are here reported for a polycarbonate copolymer with both water-soluble polyethylene glycol (PEG) groups and oxygen-dissolving perfluorocarbon groups pendant to the polymer backbone. The polycarbonate was synthesized from two cyclic carbonate monomers using organocatalytic ring-opening polymerization, yielding small copolymers (∼ 8.7 kDa) that had good solubility in water. Saline solutions of the copolymer were tested in biological applications. The copolymer solution was found to be nontoxic to HeLa cells and did not show any deleterious short-term effects in rats. Furthermore, hemorrhaged rats treated with the copolymer showed a statistically significant increase in oxygen consumption (p < 0.05) relative to hemorrhaged rats treated with saline, demonstrating that the copolymer acted as an artificial oxygen carrier that imparted a therapeutic benefit. The circulation half-life of the copolymer was estimated to be 14 h using 19F NMR spectroscopy, which was an improvement over reported perfluorocarbon emulsions.