ACS Macro Letters
ACS Macro Letters
5 years ago

Ultralow Dispersity Poly(vinyl alcohol) Reveals Significant Dispersity Effects on Ice Recrystallization Inhibition Activity

Ultralow Dispersity Poly(vinyl alcohol) Reveals Significant Dispersity Effects on Ice Recrystallization Inhibition Activity
Nicholas S. Vail, Christopher Stubbs, Caroline I. Biggs, Matthew I. Gibson
Polymer mimics of antifreeze proteins are emerging as an exciting class of macromolecular cryoprotectants for the storage of donor cells and tissue. Poly(vinyl alcohol), PVA, is the most potent polymeric ice growth inhibitor known, but its mode of action and the impact of valency (DP) are not fully understood. Herein, tandem RAFT polymerization and column chromatography are used to isolate oligomers with dispersities <1.01 to enable the effect of molecular weight distribution, as well as length, to be probed. It is found that polymers with equal number-average molecular weight, but lower dispersity, have significantly less activity, which can lead to false positives when identifying structure–property relationships. The minimum chain length for PVA’s unique activity, compared to other nonactive poly ols was identified. These results will guide the design of more active inhibitors, better cryopreservatives, and a deeper understanding of synthetic and biological antifreeze macromolecules.

Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsmacrolett.7b00595

DOI: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.7b00595

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.