Self-Immolative Polymers: An Emerging Class of Degradable Materials with Distinct Disassembly Profiles

Omri Shelef, Samer Gnaim, Doron Shabat*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

88 Scopus citations

Abstract

Self-immolative polymers are an emerging class of macromolecules with distinct disassembly profiles that set them apart from other general degradable materials. These polymers are programmed to disassemble spontaneously from head to tail, through a domino-like fragmentation, upon response to extremal stimuli. In the time since we first reported this unique type of molecule, several groups around the world have developed new, creative molecular structures that perform analogously to our pioneering polymers. Self-immolative polymers are now widely recognized as an important class of stimuli-responsive materials for a wide range of applications such as signal amplification, biosensing, drug delivery, and materials science. The quinone-methide elimination was shown to be an effective tool to achieve rapid domino-like fragmentation of polymeric molecules. Thus, numerous applications of self-immolative polymers are based on this disassembly chemistry. Although several other fragmentation reactions achieved the function requested for sequential disassembly, we predominantly focused in this Perspective on examples of self-immolative polymers that disassemble through the quinone-methide elimination. Selected examples of self-immolative polymers that disassembled through other chemistries are briefly described. The growing demand for stimuli-responsive degradable materials with novel molecular backbones and enhanced properties guarantees the future interest of the scientific community in this unique class of polymers.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)21177-21188
Number of pages12
JournalJournal of the American Chemical Society
Volume143
Issue number50
DOIs
StatePublished - 22 Dec 2021

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