Development of Neutral pH-Responsive Microgels by Tuning Cross-Linking Conditions.
Polymer microgels that respond in a range of neutral pH can be useful for the development of molecular imaging tools and drug-delivery carriers. Here, we describe a simple approach in developing microgels that undergo volume phase transitions and substantial nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxometric changes within a narrow pH range of 6.4 to 7.4. The pH-responsive microgels were synthesized using methacrylic acid and a series of ethylene glycol dimethacrylate cross-linkers with repeating units of ethylene glycol that range from one to four. NMR relaxometry demonstrated that the transverse relaxation time (T2) of a suspension containing microgels that were cross-linked with diethylene glycol dimethacrylate sharply decreases at the pH where volume phase transition occurs. The polymer microgels cross-linked with 40 and 45 mol% of diethylene glycol dimethacrylate caused about 50% T2 reduction with decreasing pH from 6.8 to 6.4. These results demonstrated that responses of microgels to a range of neutral pH can be easily tuned by using appropriate cross-linkers with certain cross-linking degree. This approach can be useful in developing highly sensitive molecular sensors for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of tissue pH values.
['Okada|Satoshi|S|0000-0003-2776-9509', 'Takayasu|Satoko|S|', 'Tomita|Shunsuke|S|0000-0002-0586-6976', 'Suzuki|Yoshio|Y|', 'Yamamoto|Shinya|S|0000-0002-0505-8848']
D005026:Ethylene Glycols D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration D000080386:Microgels D011109:Polymethacrylic Acids
pH-responsive microgels volume phase transition MRI NMR relaxation time