Thermosensitive self-assembled behavior of poly (acrylamide-co-acrylonitrile)/polystyrene triblock copolymer and application in drug loading

Abstract

Type poly(acrylamide-co-acrylonitrile) (P(AAm/AN)) is a typical thermosensitive polymer. It has a low solubility for some containing phenyl medicines. Introduction of segments with high affinity to medicines containing phenyl is helpful to improve the solubility for drugs. With the introduction of hydrophobic monomer units styrene, ABA type triblock polymer P(AAm/AN)-b-PS-b-P(AAm/AN) showed thermosensitive self-assembly behavior in aqueous solution. With the increasing of temperature, the triblock polymer experiences a process from to insoluble to from self-assembled structure and finally soluble. Accordingly, drug can be encapsulated, partly released, and completely released. This triblock polymer has the potential application in load drug release.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Drug loading and release
• polystyrene
• thermosensitive self-assembly

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Science & Technology Department of Sichuan Province 307 under [Grant number 2015JY0052].