In Vitro Enzymatic Stability of Dendritic Peptides

Abstract

PEGylated polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers as drug carriers have been a topic of interest because of their biomedically favorable features, including minimal toxicity, reduced immunogenicity, and excellent solubility in aqueous and most organic solutions. A PEG shell on dendrimer surface may provide steric hindrance, known as stealth properties of PEG, to stabilize drug molecules to be delivered. In this article, the effects of PEG and coupling sequence of drug, PEG, and dendrimer in modulating the stability of delivered drug molecules were evaluated. N-succinyl-Ala-Ala-Pro-Phe-p-nitroanilide was chosen as a model peptide. Dendritic peptides, that is, peptide-dendrimer, peptide-P AMAM-PEG, and peptide-PEG-dendrimer, were constructed based on Starburst™ G3.0 PAMAM dendrimer and characterized by 1H-NMR spectroscopy. Hydrolysis of dendritic peptides was catalyzed by α-chymotrypsin in pH 7.4 PBS buffer containing 5% DMF (v/v) at room temperature. The enzymatic stability of dendritic peptides was peptide-PAMAM-PEG ⟩ peptide-PAMAM ⟩ free peptide ⟩ peptide-PEG-PAMAM. The ratio of PEG/peptide could be reduced for increasing peptide loading while maintaining the delivered peptides' relatively high enzymatic stability. The quantitative analysis of dendritic peptide/enzyme interactions provided the understandings of the molecular structure/stability relationships of dendrimer/drug for the design of an optimal PEGylated dendrimer-based drug-delivery system.

Department(s)

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Enzyme activity inhibition; Michaelis-Menten equation; Nanomedicine; PEG-PAMAM star polymer; Peptide delivery

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0021-9304; 1097-4636

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Feb 2006

PubMed ID

16270346

Link to Full Text

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