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A random poly(L-alanine-co-L-lactic acid) (PAL) with excellent thermo-sensitivity and no cytotoxicity was synthesized by the structure-controlled polycondensation from natural L-alanine and L-lactic acid. Only those PALs in which the contents of L-alanine structural unit are rigidly controlled in the smaller range of 53–65% show a reversible lower critical solution temperature of 35–60°C. The change of secondary structure in poly(L-alanine) segments by the introduction of L-lactic acid structural unit plays a decisive role in regulating the thermo-sensitivity of PAL. The viability of HeLa cells exposed to PAL reaches up to 91–116% after incubation of 24 and 72 h, indicating no cytotoxicity. Furthermore, PAL can easily form curcumin-loaded nano-carriers through its thermo-sensitivity and self-assembly. The curcumin-loaded PAL nano-particles are observed to clearly internalize into the cells by confocal laser-scanning microscopy, and thus can be used as a potential nano-drug-carrier.

The graft copolymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) onto starch with potassium ditelluratocuprate(III) (DTC)–starch redox system as initiator was studied in alkaline medium. The grafting parame...

A novel redox system, potassium diperiodatocuprate(III) [Cu (III)]-poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) redox system, was employed to initiate the graft copolymerization of methyl acrylate (MA) onto PVA in al...

A novel redox system, potassium diperiodatonickelate [Ni (IV)]‐chitosan, was employed to initiate the graft copolymerization of methyl acrylate (MA) onto chitosan in alkali aqueous solution. The effects of reaction variables such as monomer concentration, initiator concentration, reaction time, pH and temperature were determined. By means of a series of copolymerization, the grafting conditions were optimized. The maximum grafting percentage obtained was 404.1% when 0.3 g chitosan was copolymerized with 1.8 mL monomer at 35°C for 5 hours with [Ni (IV)]=9.4×10−4 M and the total volume was 20 mL. Ni (IV)-chitosan system is found to be an efficient redox initiator for this graft copolymerization. A single electron transfer mechanism is proposed to explain the formation of radicals and the initiation. The grafted copolymers were characterized by IR and X-ray diffraction diagrams. The thermal stability of chitosan and chitosan-g-PMA was studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA).