Taking Advantage of Tailored Electrostatics and Complementary Hydrogen Bonding in the Design of Nanostructures for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Abstract Four‐armed, star‐shaped poly(D,L‐lactide) (PDLLA) was synthesized and terminally‐functionalized with either adenine or thymine complementary hydrogen bonding groups (PDLLA‐A and PDLLA‐T, respectively). The strong hydrogen bonding led to increased viscosity below the dissociation temperature of the hydrogen bonds. Rheology confirmed that these bonds were thermally reversible, with a sharp reduction in viscosity near 100 °C. PDLLA, PDLLA‐A, and PDLLA‐T were melt electrospun with no significant change in fiber diameter (all between 3.6 and 4.0 µm). However, a blend of PDLLA‐A and PDLLA‐T formed fibers with an average diameter of 9.8 ± 2.0 µm, resulting from the hydrogen bond associations. Also, the phospholipid 1‐palmitoyl‐2‐oleoyl‐ sn‐ glycero‐3‐phosphoethanolamine (POPE) was melt electrospun at 200 °C and formed uniform fibers with average fiber diameter of 6.5 ± 2.0 µm.