Abstract
This study presents the development of co-assembled copolymer architectures at physiological pH (pH7.4) formed via H-bonds between complementary nucleobase-containing copolymers. Well-definedhydrophilic copolymers were synthesised by RAFT polymerisation: statistical uracil- and thiomorpholineoxide-containing copolymers P(UrMAn-stat-THOXMAm) as well as diblock copolymers PEG112-b-P(AdMAn-stat-THOXMAm) composed of a PEG block and a second block of a copolymer of adenine- andthiomorpholine oxide-derived methacrylates. Binary mixtures of the resulting copolymers formed coassemblednanoobjects in aqueous solution as a result of the H-bonds established between nucleobases.The influences of the polymer architecture (degree of polymerisation, co-monomer composition, lengthof the nucleobase-containing block), the ratio between complementary nucleobases, and the impact ofH-bond competitors on the self-assembly properties were investigated. Light scattering techniques (SLS,DLS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to characterise the co-assembled objects.This study demonstrates that the size of the resulting co-assemblies was mainly governed by the type andcontent of nucleobases, and by the length of the nucleobase block. Moreover, the in vitro evaluation ofthe nucleobase-containing polymers revealed that they were non-cytotoxic and hemocompatible. Thisstudy increases the understanding of nucleobase pairing in artificial copolymer architectures which arepotential platforms for further use in biosciences.