Biocompatible Size-Defined Dendrimer-Albumin Binding Protein Hybrid Materials as a Versatile Platform for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

For the design of a biohybrid structure as a ligand-tailored drug delivery system (DDS), it is highly sophisticated to fabricate a DDS based on smoothly controllable conjugation steps. This article reports on the synthesis and the characterization of biohybrid conjugates based on noncovalent conjugation between a multivalent biotinylated and PEGylated poly(amido amine) (PAMAM) dendrimer and a tetrameric streptavidin-small protein binding scaffold. This protein binding scaffold (SA-ABDwt) possesses nM affinity toward human serum albumin (HSA). Thus, well-defined biohybrid structures, finalized by binding of one or two HSA molecules, are available at each conjugation step in a controlled molar ratio. Overall, these biohybrid assemblies can be used for (i) a controlled modification of dendrimers with the HSA molecules to increase their blood-circulation half-life and passive accumulation in tumor; (ii) rendering dendrimers a specific affinity to various ligands based on mutated ABD domain, thus replacing tedious dendrimer-antibody covalent coupling and purification procedures.

Keywords: HSA; PAMAM dendrimer; Streptavidin-biotin conjugations; binding domain proteins; biohybrid structures.