Synthesis of Nanostructure Drug Delivery Agents Based on Glutamic Acid and PEG

The main characteristics of dendrimers are: (i) monodispersity, (ii) a spherical shape, (iii) a highly branched architecture, (iv) a tightly packed surface, and (v) a high density of selected modifiable functional groups at their periphery. As a result of their structure, dendrimeric macromolecules have unique properties that differ from those of linear polymers, such as viscosity , thermal behavior, or molecular encapsulation.Peptide dendrimers constructed from chiral amino acids represent an attractive class of polypeptides that may be exploited to create artificial proteins with globular architecture. The multifunctional hyperbranched tree-like topology of these molecules gives them a unique property of presenting themselves as multiple-armed macromolecular scaffoldings that have found applications in the design of vaccines, diagnostic products, artificial enzymes, and biocompatible surfactants. The well-defined structure, compact globular shape, size monodispersity and controllable ‘surface’ functionalities of dendrimers make them excellent candidates for evaluation as drug carriers. Although the use of dendrimers as drug-delivery agents has been touted as a major area of their potential application, this area has actually been little studied. Dendrimers can be used as potential drug-delivery agents in at least two ways: firstly, the drug molecules can be physically entrapped inside the dendritic structure; secondly, the drug molecules can be covalently attached onto surface or other functionalities to afford dendrimer–drug conjugates