Design and synthesis of PEG curcumin monomer for the comb-like polymer prodrug

摘要

Curcumin is a kind of compound with various biological activities. However, curcumin suffers from low aqueous solubility, instability and poor bioavailability in vivo, which restrained it from clinical application. In this paper, novel water soluble curcumin prodrug monomer was synthesized by reacting curcumin with methacryloyl polyethylene glycol (MA-PEG), and succinic anhydride. IR, MS and 1H NMR spectroscopy were carried out to verify the products. We studied and modified the reaction conditions. The drug load rate of the monomer was 26.9%, which was 2-4-fold than previous report, and the solubility of it could be increased to 1.17g/L, which was about 150 times higher than previous report. The monomer is used to prepare comb-like polymer prodrugs.