“Synthesis of unnatural poly(amino acid)s and their dendritic derivatives by polymer-enhanced laccase complexes”

This talk will present and discuss an enzyme-catalyzed “green” synthesis of unnatural poly(amino acid)s and their dendronized analogues. It will be shown how DL-tyrosine could be polymerized under environmentally friendly conditions using linear-dendritic laccase complexes as initiators and water as solvent. The influence of the dendron generation in the linear-dendritic copolymers, the monomer concentration, time and temperature on the polymers yields and molecular masses will be discussed along with the structure of the poly(tyrosine) as investigated by NMR, FT-IR and MALDI-TOF. The synthesis of dendritic tyrosine monomers of different generations will also be presented. The materials formed by both polymerizations are completely water-soluble and behave either as typical poly(zwitterions) or like macro-amphiphiles, changing charge, size and shape with the medium pH and generation of the dendritic side groups. Potential biomedical applications will be outlined.