3D Printing Polymers with Supramolecular Functionality for Biological Applications.

Supramolecular chemistry continues to experience widespread growth, as fine-tuned chemical structures lead to well-defined bulk materials. Previous literature described the roles of hydrogen bonding, ionic aggregation, guest/host interactions, and π-π stacking to tune mechanical, viscoelastic, and processing performance. The versatility of reversible interactions enables the more facile manufacturing of molded parts with tailored hierarchical structures such as tissue engineered scaffolds for biological applications. Recently, supramolecular polymers and additive manufacturing processes merged to provide parts with control of the molecular, macromolecular, and feature length scales. Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, generates customizable constructs desirable for many applications, and the introduction of supramolecular interactions will potentially increase production speed, offer a tunable surface structure for controlling cell/scaffold interactions, and impart desired mechanical properties through reinforcing interlayer adhesion and introducing gradients or self-assembled structures. This review details the synthesis and characterization of supramolecular polymers suitable for additive manufacture and biomedical applications as well as the use of supramolecular polymers in additive manufacturing for drug delivery and complex tissue scaffold formation. The effect of supramolecular assembly and its dynamic behavior offers potential for controlling the anisotropy of the printed objects with exquisite geometrical control. The potential for supramolecular polymers to generate well-defined parts, hierarchical structures, and scaffolds with gradient properties/tuned surfaces provides an avenue for developing next-generation biomedical devices and tissue scaffolds.

Synthesis of Water-Soluble Imidazolium Polyesters as Potential Nonviral Gene Delivery Vehicles.

The inherent hydrolytic reactivity of polyesters renders them excellent candidates for a variety of biomedical applications. Incorporating ionic groups further expands their potential impact, encompassing charge-dependent function such as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) binding, antibacterial properties, and pH-responsiveness. Catalyst-free and solvent-free polycondensation of a bromomethyl imidazolium-containing (BrMeIm) diol with neopentylglycol (NPG) and adipic acid (AA) afforded novel charged copolyesters with pendant imidazolium sites. Varying ionic content influenced thermal properties and offered a wide-range, -41 to 40 °C, of composition-dependent glass transition temperatures (Tgs). In addition to desirable melt and thermal stability, polyesters with ionic concentrations ≥15 mol % readily dispersed in water, suggesting potential as nonviral gene delivery vectors. An electrophoretic gel shift assay confirmed the novel cationic copolyesters successfully bound DNA at an N/P ratio of 4 for 50 mol % and 75 mol % charged copolyesters (P(NA50-co-ImA50) and P(NA25-co-ImA75)), and an N/P ratio of 5 for 100 mol % Im (PImA). Polyplexes exhibited insignificant cytotoxicity even at high concentrations (200 µg/mL), and a Luciferase transfection assay revealed the ionic (co)polyesters transfected DNA significantly better than the untreated controls. The successful transfection of these novel (co)polyesters inspires future imidazolium-containing polyester design.

Influence of hyperthermia on efficacy and uptake of carbon nanohorn-cisplatin conjugates.

Single-walled carbon nanohorns (SWNHs) have significant potential for use in photothermal therapies due to their capability to absorb near infrared light and deposit heat. Additionally, their extensive relative surface area and volume makes them ideal drug delivery vehicles. Novel multimodal treatments are envisioned in which laser excitation can be utilized in combination with chemotherapeutic-SWNH conjugates to thermally enhance the therapeutic efficacy of the transported drug. Although mild hyperthermia (41-43 °C) has been shown to increase cellular uptake of drugs such as cisplatin (CDDP) leading to thermal enhancement, studies on the effects of hyperthermia on cisplatin loaded nanoparticles are currently limited. After using a carbodiimide chemical reaction to attach CDDP to the exterior surface of SWNHs and nitric acid to incorporate CDDP in the interior volume, we determined the effects of mild hyperthermia on the efficacy of the CDDP-SWNH conjugates. Rat bladder transitional carcinoma cells were exposed to free CDDP or one of two CDDP-SWNH conjugates in vitro at 37 °C and 42 °C with the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) for each treatment. The in vitro results demonstrate that unlike free CDDP, CDDP-SWNH conjugates do not exhibit thermal enhancement at 42 °C. An increase in viability of 16% and 7% was measured when cells were exposed at 42 deg compared to 37 deg for the surface attached and volume loaded CDDP-SWNH conjugates, respectively. Flow cytometry and confocal microscopy showed a decreased uptake of CDDP-SWNH conjugates at 42 °C compared to 37 °C, revealing the importance of nanoparticle uptake on the CDDP-SWNH conjugate's efficacy, particularly when hyperthermia is used as an adjuvant, and demonstrates the effect of particle size on uptake during mild hyperthermia. The uptake and drug release studies elucidated the difference in viability seen in the drug efficacy studies at different temperatures. We speculate that the disparity in thermal enhancement efficacy observed for free drug compared to the drug SWNH conjugates is due to their intrinsic size differences and, therefore, their mode of cellular uptake: diffusion or endocytosis. These experiments indicate the importance of tuning properties of nanoparticle-drug conjugates to maximize cellular uptake to ensure thermal enhancement in nanoparticle mediated photothermal-chemotherapy treatments.

Poly(ether ester) Ionomers as Water-Soluble Polymers for Material Extrusion Additive Manufacturing Processes.

Water-soluble polymers as sacrificial supports for additive manufacturing (AM) facilitate complex features in printed objects. Few water-soluble polymers beyond poly(vinyl alcohol) enable material extrusion AM. In this work, charged poly(ether ester)s with tailored rheological and mechanical properties serve as novel materials for extrusion-based AM at low temperatures. Melt transesterification of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG, 8k) and dimethyl 5-sulfoisophthalate afforded poly(ether ester)s of sufficient molecular weight to impart mechanical integrity. Quantitative ion exchange provided a library of poly(ether ester)s with varying counterions, including both monovalent and divalent cations. Dynamic mechanical and tensile analysis revealed an insignificant difference in mechanical properties for these polymers below the melting temperature, suggesting an insignificant change in final part properties. Rheological analysis, however, revealed the advantageous effect of divalent countercations (Ca2+, Mg2+, and Zn2+) in the melt state and exhibited an increase in viscosity of two orders of magnitude. Furthermore, time-temperature superposition identified an elevation in modulus, melt viscosity, and flow activation energy, suggesting intramolecular interactions between polymer chains and a higher apparent molecular weight. In particular, extrusion of poly(PEG8k-co-CaSIP) revealed vast opportunities for extrusion AM of well-defined parts. The unique melt rheological properties highlighted these poly(ether ester) ionomers as ideal candidates for low-temperature material extrusion additive manufacturing of water-soluble parts.

Nanoparticle enhanced optical imaging and phototherapy of cancer.

Nanoparticle research has seen advances in many fields, including the imaging and treatment of cancer. Specifically, nanotechnology has been investigated for its potential to be used as a tool to deliver well-tested drugs in potentially safer concentrations through both passive and active tumor targeting, while additionally providing means for a secondary therapy or imaging contrast. In particular, the use of light in conjunction with nanoparticle-based imaging and therapies has grown in popularity in recent years due to advances in utilizing light energy. In this review, we will first discuss nanoparticle platforms that can be used for optical imaging of cancer, such as fluorescence generation with quantum dots and surface-enhanced Raman scattering with plasmonic nanoparticles. We then analyze nanoparticle therapies, including photothermal therapy, photodynamic therapies, and photoacoustic therapy and their differences in exploiting light for cancer treatment. For photothermal therapies in particular, we have aggregated data on key variables in gold nanoparticle treatment protocols, such as exposure energy and nanoparticle concentration, and hope to highlight the need for normalization of variable reporting across varying experimental conditions and energy sources. We additionally discuss the potential to co-deliver chemotherapeutic drugs to the tumor using nanoparticles and how light can be harnessed for multifunctional approaches to cancer therapy. Finally, current in vitro methods of testing these therapies is discussed as well as the potential to improve on clinical translatability through 3D tissue phantoms. This review is focused on presenting, for the first time, a comprehensive comparison on a wide variety of photo based nanoparticle interactions leading to novel treatments and imaging tools from a basic science to clinical aspects and future directions.

High elastic modulus nanoparticles: a novel tool for subfailure connective tissue matrix damage.

Subfailure matrix injuries such as sprains and strains account for a considerable portion of ligament and tendon pathologies. In addition to the lack of a robust biological healing response, these types of injuries are often characterized by seriously diminished matrix biomechanics. Recent work has shown nanosized particles, such as nanocarbons and nanocellulose, to be effective in modulating cell and biological matrix responses for biomedical applications. In this article, we investigate the feasibility and effect of using high stiffness nanostructures of varying size and shape as nanofillers to mechanically reinforce damaged soft tissue matrices. To this end, nanoparticles (NPs) were characterized using atomic force microscopy and dynamic light scattering techniques. Next, we used a uniaxial tensile injury model to test connective tissue (porcine skin and tendon) biomechanical response to NP injections. After injection into damaged skin and tendon specimens, the NPs, more notably nanocarbons in skin, led to an increase in elastic moduli and yield strength. Furthermore, rat primary patella tendon fibroblast cell activity evaluated using the metabolic water soluble tetrazolium salt assay showed no cytotoxicity of the NPs studied, instead after 21 days nanocellulose-treated tenocytes exhibited significantly higher cell activity when compared with nontreated control tenocytes. Dispersion of nanocarbons injected by solution into tendon tissue was investigated through histologic studies, revealing effective dispersion and infiltration in the treated region. Such results suggest that these high modulus NPs could be used as a tool for damaged connective tissue repair.