Design of boronic acid polymer network biomaterials and their medical applications

Abstract

Boronic acids (BA) are able to reversibly interact with the diol groups, a commonly found chemical structural motif in biomolecules including sugars, ribose and catechols. In some aspects, they optimally enhance the environmental stability of ribose, supporting a rationale for the "RNA world hypothesis," one of the theories of the origin of life. For their carbohydrate-binding properties, they can be regarded as a synthetic mimic of lectins, often termed “borono-lectins”. Remarkably, the borono-lectins platform can be chemically tailored to manifest a broad profile of binding strength and specificity. Besides the structural versatility, a pronounced change in solubility accompanies some molecular-recognition events, enabling the "network polymers" to enjoy their complex and hierarchical functionalities. Here we provide a brief overview of our recent efforts on the related applications with special focuses on the intracellular environment-responsive nucleic acid drug delivery system, cancer diagnosis and targeted therapy by sialic acid recognition, and glucose-responsive insulin delivery system for the treatment of diabetes.