Peptidic Dendronized Polyisocyanides

With comparable size to the biological macromolecules, helical dendronizedpolymers will not only offer the possibilities to directly visualize thesemacromolecules and to investigate the relationship between their chemical structuresand helical conformations, but also provide chiral environments on an individualmolecule level, which may have promising applications in various areas. Therefore,investigation of macro-size helical polymers is of great significance in the field offundamental research and material applications.Helical polyisocyanides stand out among various helical polymers due to theirhigh dense pendants and highly rigid backbones. In present thesis, we firstlydesigned and prepared series of aliphatic and aromatic polyisocyanides carryingpeptide-based chiral dendrons by grafting through method. It was found that thegrafting through method only afforded oligomers due to the large steric hindranceof the side lysine dendrons. To obtain macro-size dendronized polyisocyanides withhigh molecular weights, dynamic hydrazone bond was used to link the backbone ofpolyisocyanide and the side glutamic acid-based dendron. CD spectroscopy wasutilized to investigate the relationship between the structure and conformation of thedendronized polyisocyanides. The results show that the length, rigidity andconformation of the linkage spacer have important effects on the chiral transfer.