Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
13
DEGRADABLE DENDRIMERS
M
ARC
G
INGRAS
CNRS, Aix-Marseille II University, UPR 3118 Interdisciplinary Center on Nanosciences
of Marseille, 163 Av. de Luminy, Case 913, 13288 Marseille Cedex 09, France
The present chapter is a complement to a previous review on cleavable dendri-
mers [1] and stands from an academic-industrial research activity on dendrimer-
drug conjugates for drug delivery [2]. The purpose of this review is to emphasize a
new stage in the chemistry of dendrimers: their degradation, which came after many
efforts to assemble them in an efficient manner. A well-documented survey of the
literature will be presented for the first time in this fastly expanding field by using
some selected examples and applications. The degradability of dendrimers is a
modern topic, in our era of green chemistry and environmental concerns. The
current progress in this field suggests highly important uses to come from degrad-
able dendrimers, especially in life sciences, in nanoscienceandinmaterials
chemistry.
13.1 INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
Dendrimers are considered as a modern and an elegant class of hyperbranched
macromolecules in polymer sciences [3]. They resemble tree-like molecular archi-
tectures built from repetitive monomers or chemical units with branching points,
radially connected to a template core. Among their main characteristics are the
possibilities for incorporating a large number of functions (outward and/or inward)
or some chemical units and exploiting a dense chemical environment and some internal
voids, which could serve to encapsulate some molecular entities (see below)
(Figure13.1).
