Hyperbranched Polymers with Controllable Topologies for Drug Delivery

Abstract

Hyperbranched polymers (HPs) have widely been used for drug delivery owing to their highly branched topology, which endows the HPs with a large amount of intramolecular cavities for drug encapsulation and terminal groups for drug conjugation. Additionally, one-pot, large-scale preparations enable the easy fabrication of HPs for biomedical applications. This review provides an overview of the synthesis of HPs and their application for drug delivery. First, we introduce a diversity of methods for the synthesis of HPs with controllable topologies. Subsequently, we discuss drug encapsulation and drug conjugation by using HPs. Finally, we highlight the use of HPs with controllable topologies for promising drug delivery.

Keywords: drug conjugation; drug delivery; nanocarriers; polymers; topology construction.