Brønsted Acid Catalyzed Stereoselective Polymerization of Vinyl Ethers.

Isotactic poly(vinyl ether)s (PVEs) have recently been identified as a new class of semicrystalline thermoplastics with a valuable combination of mechanical and interfacial properties. Currently, methods to synthesize isotactic PVEs are limited to strong Lewis acids that require a high catalyst loading and limit the accessible scope of monomer substrates for polymerization. Here, we demonstrate the first Brønsted acid catalyzed stereoselective polymerization of vinyl ethers. A single-component imidodiphosphorimidate catalyst exhibits a sufficiently low pKa to initiate vinyl ether polymerization and acts as a chiral conjugate base to direct the stereochemistry of monomer addition to the oxocarbenium ion reactive chain end. This Brønsted acid catalyzed stereoselective polymerization enabled an expanded substrate scope compared to previous methods, the use of chain transfer agents to lower catalyst loading, and the capability to recycle the catalyst for multiple polymerizations.

Mapping protein-polymer conformations in bioconjugates with atomic precision.

Rational design of protein-polymer bioconjugates is hindered by limited experimental data and mechanistic understanding on interactions between the two. In this communication, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) paramagnetic relaxation enhancement (PRE) reports on distances between paramagnetic spin labels and NMR active nuclei, informing on the conformation of conjugated polymers. 1H/15N-heteronuclear single quantum coherence (HSQC) NMR spectra were collected for ubiquitin (Ub) modified with block copolymers incorporating spin labels at different positions along their backbone. The resultant PRE data show that the conjugated polymers have conformations biased towards the nonpolar ß-sheet face of Ub, rather than behaving as if in solution. The bioconjugates are stabilized against denaturation by guanidine-hydrochloride, as measured by circular dichroism (CD), and this stabilization is attributed to the interaction between the protein and conjugated polymer.

Investigating the Mechanism of Horseradish Peroxidase as a RAFT-Initiase.

A detailed mechanistic and kinetic study of enzymatically initiated RAFT polymerization is performed by combining enzymatic assays and polymerization kinetics analysis. Horseradish peroxidase (HRP) initiated RAFT polymerization of dimethylacrylamide (DMAm) was studied. This polymerization was controlled by 2-(propionic acid)ylethyl trithiocarbonate (PAETC) in the presence of H2O2 as a substrate and acetylacetone (ACAC) as a mediator. In general, well controlled polymers with narrow molecular weight distributions and good agreement between theoretical and measured molecular weights are consistently obtained by this method. Kinetic and enzymatic assay analyses show that HRP loading accelerates the reaction, with a critical concentration of ACAC needed to effectively generate polymerization initiating radicals. The PAETC RAFT agent is required to control the reaction, although the RAFT agent also has an inhibitory effect on enzymatic performance and polymerization. Interestingly, although H2O2 is the substrate for HRP there is an optimal concentration near 1 mM, under the conditions studies, with higher or lower concentrations leading to lower polymerization rates and poorer enzymatic activity. This is explained through a competition between the H2O2 acting as a substrate, but also an inhibitor of HRP at high concentrations.