Amphiphilic polylactide-poly(ethylene oxide)-poly(propylene oxide) block copolymers: Self-assembly behavior and cell affinity

Polylactide (PLA) is a biodegradable polyester recognized for its potential use as a biomedical material. Poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and copolymers based on PEO and poly(propylene oxide) (PPO) are biocompatible polyethers widely applied in the biomedical field, particularly as macromolecular nonionic surfactants. In this work, PLA blocks were attached to the PEO and to the PEO and PPO-based triblock copolymer PEO-PPO-PEO, through ring-opening polymerization of racemic lactide (rac-LA) to obtain the amphiphilic triblock PLA-PEO-PLA and pentablock PLA-PEO-PPO-PEO-PLA copolymers containing hydrophilic/hydrophobic blocks with variable block mass ratios. The copolymers were evaluated for chemical composition, molar mass, and thermal properties, and they were used to prepare self-assemble aggregates in water from tetrahydrofuran polymer solutions. The combination of scattering light experiments and microscopy techniques revealed the spherical morphology of the aggregates with diameters around 180-200 nm, which comprises a hydrophobic PLA core and a hydrophilic polyether shell. The aggregates are nontoxic to human cervical cancer cell line HeLa cells, as determined by MTS assay, and the aggregates are potential candidates to be applied in the encapsulation of hydrophobic compounds. (c) 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2018, 56, 2203-2213