Sequence controls gellability

A paper helpful to guide the molecular design of the underlying thermogelling systems as injectable hydrogels was published as:

Influence of LA and GA sequence in the PLGA block on the properties of thermogelling PLGA-PEG-PLGA block copolymers

Lin Yu, Zheng Zhang, Jiandong Ding*, Biomacromolecules, 12, 1290–1297 (2011)

This paper reports the influence of sequence structures of block copolymers composed of poly(lactic acid-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) on their thermogelling aqueous behaviors. A series of thermogelling PLGA-PEG-PLGA triblock copolymers with similar chemical compositions and block lengths but different sequences of D,L-lactide (LA) and glycolide (GA) in the PLGA block were synthesized. Our study reveals that the macromolecular sequence structure influences the hydrophobic/hydrophilic balance of this kind of amphiphilic copolymers and thus alters mesoscopic micellization and the forthcoming macroscopic physical gelation in water.