Colorimetric determination of Boron-10 in macromolecular delivery agents

A polyglycerol with dendritic structure (PGLD) was synthesized by the ring opening polymerization of deprotonated glycidol using a polyglycerol as core functionality in a step-growth process denominated divergent synthesis. After PGLD reaction with 10B-enriched boric acid there was a marked increase in the bulk viscosity of the PGLD dendrimer evidencing the polyester formation. Gel permeation chromatography (GPC) analysis was used to characterize the molecular weight and the polydispersivity of the synthesized PGLD dendrimer. A dendritic polyglycerol structure with Mn value of 16.7 kDa and a narrow polydispersivity (Mw/Mn = 1.05) was obtained in this work. 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR measurements were employed to assess the degree of branching (DB) in PGLD. The DB of 0.85 indicates the tendency of a dentritic structure for the PGLD synthesized in this work. The boron-10 concentration was dependent of the PGLD generation. A selective reagent, curcumine, was studied for spectrophotometric determination of boron in polyglycerol dendrimers. Boron reacts with curcumine to form a complex, which has a maximum absorption peak at 552 nm. Under the optimal conditions, Beer's law was obeyed over the range 0∼20 μg of boron in 25 mL of solution. The biological assays indicate the PGLD-B with boron-10 concentration of 25 mg10B/gPGLD as the most promising macromolecule enriched with boron-10 for the BNCT therapy. (author)