Carbohydrate-centered PAMAM dendrimers for growing liver cells

Abstract

Glycodendrimers are a fairly new area of polymer synthesis offering an array of possible applications in the field of biomaterials and tissue engineering. In this study a galactose-centered polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimer was synthesized for use in the potential application of tissue engineering, specifically as scaffolds for growing liver cells. Synthesis of the dendrimer can be summarized by the following; conversion of carbohydrate hydroxyls to halides, followed by the two-step Gabriel synthesis, and finishing with the iterative two-step reaction of PAMAM synthesis. Products were examined using the analytical methods of FTIR, H and C-NMR, and MALDI-TOF-MS.