Nanoobjects formed by ionic PAMAM dendrimers: hydrophilic/lipophilic modulation and encapsulation properties

In this paper, we present the preparation and properties of some ionic PAMAM derivatives, which combine hydrophilic and lipophilic carboxylic acid chains as counter-ions for all protonable inner and outer amino groups. The amphiphilic nature of the final ionic codendrimers and, hence, their self-assembling features can be modulated by using different ratios between hydrophilic and lipophilic chains. In the bulk, these new materials self-organize into smectic A liquid crystal phases. In water, they self-assemble into different types of nano-objects depending on the molecular composition. The study of the morphology of these nano-structures, their cytotoxicity and their capability to encapsulate a lipophilic anticancer drug are reported herein. Some of these nanoobjects are non-cytotoxic and present good drug trapping ability, which make them interesting nanocarriers for applications in nanotechnology and biomedicine.This work was supported by the FP7 PEOPLE PROGRAMME, the Marie Curie Actions; ITN, no. 215884-2, the MINECO, Spain (under Projects: CTQ2012-35692 and MAT2012-38538-CO3-01), which included FEDER funding, and the Aragón Government FSE (Project E04). Thanks are given to: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Mass Spectrometry and Thermal Analysis Services from the CEQMA, Universidad de Zaragoza-CSIC (Spain). A.L. thanks the MECD (Spain) for FPU grants. E.F. is thankful for the support from the EU (Marie Curie ITN ‘Dendreamers’) as an ESR. R.G.-P. is thankful for the support from the Aragón PhD student program (DGA).Peer Reviewe