Dendrimer micelles

Dendrimers can be designed to have a hydrophobic interior and a hydrophilic periphery. This gives them properties that are similar to those of conventional surfactants, and they can solubilize hydrophobic substances such as pyridine in aqueous solution by including them as guest molecules. They are therefore effectively mimolecular micelles. 

Dendrimers can be fabricated so that they have a hydrophobic interior and a hydrophilic periphery. Indeed, organic dendrimers, with relatively non-polar 

Dendrimer micelles of this type have been formulated as drug delivery vehicles. Dendrimers with a hydrophobic interior have been used to entrap a hydrophobic drug such as indomethacin. This is retained because of the hydrophilic periphery containing ethylene glycol functional groups, and is released slowly because of the collapsed configuration of the interior, through which molecular diffusion is obstructed. 

Dendrimers can also be prepared with an inverse relationship between their hydrophobic and hydrophilic constituents, i.e. with a hydrophobic periphery and a hydrophilic interior. They can then behave as reverse micelles and are able to concentrate polar molecules from solutions of nonpolar solvents. The shape of these molecules, when dissolved in a solvent that matches the hydrophobic nature of the periphery, is spherical with chain-ends extended towards the solvent. The interior may then collapse to a minimum volume, so that unfavourable interactions that might result from penetration by solvent molecules are minimized. 

---

In contrast to dendrimers built up from aliphatic chains, polyphenylene dendrimer micelles possess shape and size persistent cavities due to their rigid scaffold which strongly depends on the type of dendrimer. In this case a selective incorporation of guest molecules, e.g., fluorescent dyes, should be possible, dependent on the size of the guest molecule and the cavity of the host. The non-covalent uptake of dyes with an appropriate size thus allows the investigation of their interactions within the dendritic micelle. In our case we made the second-generation polyphenylene dendrimer 48, which bears 16 carboxy-functions at the periphery, by starting from a tetrahedral core and an appropriately... 

Fig. 3.3 TEM and model of an assembly of fluid kanamycin micelles. The picture shows no signs of fusion or collapse. It looks similar to pictures of much smaller covalent dendrimer micelles.

Figure 5 Structures of some Gd-loaded species (e.g., dendrimers, micelles, and liposome...

Monomers of die type Aa B. are used in step-growth polymerization to produce a variety of polymer architectures, including stars, dendrimers, and hyperbranched polymers.26 28 The unique architecture imparts properties distinctly different from linear polymers of similar compositions. These materials are finding applications in areas such as resin modification, micelles and encapsulation, liquid crystals, pharmaceuticals, catalysis, electroluminescent devices, and analytical chemistry. 

The use of ordered supramolecular assemblies, such as micelles, monolayers, vesicles, inverted micelles, and lyotropic liquid crystalline systems, allows for the controlled nucleation of inorganic materials on molecular templates with well-defined structure and surface chemistry. Poly(propyleneimine) dendrimers modified with long aliphatic chains are a new class of amphiphiles which display a variety of aggregation states due to their conformational flexibility [38]. In the presence of octadecylamine, poly(propyleneimine) dendrimers modified with long alkyl chains self-assemble to form remarkably rigid and well-defined aggregates. When the aggregate dispersion was injected into a supersaturated... 

Chemistry of micelles is an important area of dendrimer research. A micellar structure depends on numerous factors, such as temperature, concentration, and mainly the molecular framework of the given amphiphiles. Revolutionary research in micellar chemistry is exhibited in the work of Menger et al. [57] and by Shinkai et al. [58]. 

Frdchet et al. reported the synthesis of a unimolecular micelle (Fig. 6) generated by a convergent approach starting with 3,5-dihydroxybenzyl alcohol, as the key branched monomer unit [65]. Fourth generation dendrimer 15 with 32 carboxylic acid moieties on the periphery was synthesized and its correspond-... 

Meijer et al. [135] further studied aggregation phenomena of amphiphilic copolymers obtained by modifying the termini of the dendrimer units of the above series with carboxylic acid groups (49). TEM experiments indicated that all block copolymers formed large aggregates except third generation copolymer which formed worm-like micelles. 

Dendrimers produced in this way will necessarily possess unique cavities, clefts, and void regions thereby facilitating the investigation of novel, dissymmetric architectures [polycelles = poly(micelles)] [214], and thus add the next chapter to this ever expanding field of supramolecular chemistry. 

See also Luminescent dendrimers antibacterial, 26 799 biocompatibility studies of, 26 800-801 in catalysis, 26 805-806 in cell targeting, 26 797-798 as chelators, 26 806-807 core and interior shells of, 26 789 cytotoxicity of, 26 800-801 in drug delivery, 26 792-795 in gene transfection, 26 791-792 as imaging agents, 26 795-797 luminescent, 26 801-804 medical applications of, 26 791-801 micelle-mimetic behavior of, 26 789 multiphoton applications of, 26 803-804... 

Figure 13.2 Unimolecular micelle type dendrimer (1) reported by Newkome and probes...

---