Probing the local environment of encapsulated bioactive molecules within unimolecular amphiphilic nanocarriers

摘要

Unimolecular amphiphilic nanocarriers (UANs) are biocompatible polymeric materials designed to encapsulate,protect,and deliver hydrophobic bioactive molecules,including drugs.Synthetic control of the hydrophobic/lipophilic balance is achieved by selection of the alkyl chain lengths,as well as the length of the polyethylene glycol tails.An example of a UAN is shown below in Figure.1.To study the local environment of a molecule encapsulated within a UAN,we have used coumarin 102 a well characterized fluorescence probe molecule coumarin 102 (C102,a.k.a.coumarin 480),also shown in Figure 1.