Through a chemical synthesis reaction, PEG linkers can be made by precisely introducing functionalized groups with strong reactivity at specific molecular ends of PEG. Since a variety of groups can be introduced, PEG linkers are widely used in biological and medical research due to their solubility in water, excellent biocompatibility, and non-immunogenicity.
There are two classes of PEG linkers, monodispersed and polydispersed PEG linkers. The molecular weight of polydisperse PEG is uncertain and distributed in a certain range. Often polydispersity index (PDI) is used to determine how narrow the molecular weight distribution is. On the country, Monodisperse PEG refers to polyethylene glycol (PEG) with a precise, discrete molecular weight (ie, with a fixed molecular weight rather than a range).
The PEG linkER is extensively applied to functional materials, biological and medical chemistry.
The main applications of PEG linkER are as follows.
Modification of surface
PEG were used as a linker between the surface and the peptide for protease detection. The nonspecific binding of peptide to the surface was reduced by introducing PEG linkER with hydrophilic. Given many proteolytic enzymes are active to specific peptide sequences, using the PEG-peptide surfaces as analytical platforms offers the opportunity for study of enzymatic activity.
Cell carrier
It should be noted that the length of the PEG linkER plays a key role in regulating the uptake efficiency of nanoparticle. Inspired by this, the specific receptor binding of nanoparticle was evaluated by incorporation PEG linkER with different length to cyclic RGD ligand. As a result, the nanoparticle with short PEG linkER displayed most efficient in targetin receptors in vitro and the overall entropic loss upon binding to receptor was reduced. A suitable length of the PEG linkER is important for biotherapy as cell carriers to maximize therapeutic efficacy and minimize undesired side effects.
Fluorescence probe
NIR 4,4-difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-sindacene (BODIPY) derivative was successfully conjugated to cetuximab and trastuzumab by the adding water-soluble group of PEG linkER. Antibody conjugate display a high tumor to background ratios and persistent fluorescent signal, which suggest that the feasibility of NIR BODIPY conjugate as an activatable fluorescence probe for further clinical applications.
Controlled drug release
The well-defined, water-soluble block- and gradient-type amine-functional PEG copolymer have been prepared by controlled anionic ring-opening copolymerization (AROcP). More fundamentally, the copolymer exhibit thermo- and pH- responsive behavior in aqueous solution which are precisely tunable by the comonomer of PEG ratio. The amine-functional PEG-based copolymer have promising applications in controlled drug release due to PEG’s established biocompatibility and utilizing pH as their active trigger.
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