Dendrimers and dendronized materials as nanocarriers

ELIANA FARIAS; LYDIA BOUCHET; VERÓNICA BRUNETTI; MIRIAM STRUMIA

Nanostructures for Novel Therapy: Synthesis, Characterization and Applications?, Edited by A. Grumezescu and D. Ficai, Publ

Elsevier

Año: 2017;

Molecular nanostructures with well-defined particle shape and size, such as dendrimersand dendritic structures, are of great importance in the development of novel therapeutic devices.Unique properties of dendritic macromolecules render them far more useful for biomedicalapplications than linear polymers. Thus, over the past three decades, sizeable contributions to thepolymer-based nanocarriers have come from dendrimers, which along with their endocavities,provide wide scope for structural modifications at the molecular level. New nanomaterials couldbe prepared using these structures as building blocks. Nanoparticle-cored dendrimers are alsoversatile carriers because of their colloidal stability, tunable membrane properties and ability toencapsulate or integrate a broad range of drugs and molecules. These hybrid nanocomposites aimto combine the advantage of stimuli-responsive dendritic coating, in order to regulate drugreleasebehaviour under different conditions, with improvements in the biocompatibility and invivo half-time circulation of the inorganic nanoparticles. This chapter describes generalcharacteristics of dendrimers and dendronized materials, synthetic methodologies and theirproperties. Successful applications of dendrimers and novel dendritic structures as nanocarriersare discussed.