Posted by Researchers from Kumamoto University (Hidetoshi Arima, Keiichi Motoyama, Taishi Higashi) filed an international patent application on a novel synthesis of cyclodextrin based catenanes. The application (WO2018164225) discloses a structure built up of a cyclodextrin (or derivative) and a copolymer guest composed of PEG-PPG chains, PE(amide) linkers, wherein both ends of the chains are connected by disulfide bonds. The inventors anticipate that these constructs may function as medical material or a drug delivery carrier. The polycatenane provided by the invention is capable of trapping CD in an axial molecule and “smuggle” cyclodextrins into living cells. In a reducing environment (i.e. the cytoplasm), the degradation of the disulfide bond is expected to exhibit antitumor activity as a result of releasing the cyclodextrin from the polycatenane.
The picture is taken from the PhD thesis of Q. Wu (Case Western Reserve University, 2017)
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