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Browsing by Author "Gao, Chengzhe"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Designing synergistic crystallization inhibitors: Bile salt derivatives of cellulose with enhanced hydrophilicity
    Novo, Diana C.; Gao, Chengzhe; Qi, Qingqing; Mosquera-Giraldo, Laura I.; Spiering, Glenn A.; Moore, Robert B.; Taylor, Lynne S.; Edgar, Kevin J. (Elsevier, 2022-09-15)
    Crystallization inhibitors in amorphous solid dispersions (ASD) enable metastable supersaturated drug solutions that persist for a physiologically relevant time. Olefin cross-metathesis (CM) has successfully provided multifunctional cellulose-based derivatives as candidate ASD matrix polymers. In proof of concept studies, we prepared hydrophobic bile salt/cellulose adducts by CM with naturally occurring bile salts. We hypothesized that increased hydrophilicity would enhance the ability of these conjugates to maximize bioactive supersaturation. Their selective preparation presents a significant synthetic challenge, given polysaccharide reactivity and polysaccharide and bile salt complexity. We prepared such derivatives using a more hydrophilic hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) backbone, employing a pent-4-enyl tether (Pen) for appending bile acids. We probed structure-property relationships by varying the nature and degree of substitution of the bile acid substituent (lithocholic or deoxycholic acid). These conjugates are indeed synergistic inhibitors, as demonstrated with the fast-crystallizing prostate cancer drug, enzalutamide. The lithocholic acid methyl ester derivative, AcrMLC-PenHHPCPen (0.64), increased induction time 68 fold vs. drug alone.
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    Regioselective chlorination of cellulose esters
    Gao, Chengzhe (Virginia Tech, 2018-07-31)
    Chemical modification of cellulose has been of growing interest, owing to the abundance and processing challenges of natural cellulose. To date, etherification and esterification are the most effective strategies to modify physicochemical properties of cellulose and append new functionalities. However, they typically require relatively harsh conditions, thus limiting introduction of new functional groups. An alternative strategy to synthesize novel cellulose derivatives is to append a good leaving group to cellulose backbone, followed by nucleophilic substitution reaction. Though tosylation and bromination of cellulose are frequently used, they have drawbacks such as chemo- and regioselectivity issues, high cost, and difficulty in purification. We have successfully developed a method to chemo- and regioselectively chlorinate cellulose esters using MsCl. Compared to bromination of cellulose typically used, this chlorination method has many advantages, including low cost of reagents and ease of separation. The chlorinated cellulose esters are useful intermediates for appending new functionalities by displacement reactions. We have synthesized a library of cellulose ester derivatives by this chlorination/nucleophilic substitution strategy, including cationic and anionic cellulose ester derivatives. These cellulose ester derivatives possess great potentialiii for various applications, including amorphous solid dispersion, tight junction opening, anionic drug delivery, and gas separation membranes.
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    Regioselective Synthesis of Glycosaminoglycan Analogs
    Gao, Chengzhe (Virginia Tech, 2020-03-06)
    Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), a large family of complex, unbranched polysaccharides, display a variety of essential physiological functions. The structural complexity of GAGs greatly impedes their availability, thus making it difficult to understand the biological roles of GAGs and structure-property relationships. A method that can access GAGs and their analogs with defined structure at relatively large scales will facilitate our understandings of GAG biological roles and biosynthesis modulation. Cellulose is an abundant and renewable natural polymer. Applications of cellulose and cellulose derivatives have drawn increasing attention in recent decades. Chemical modification is an efficient method to append new functionalities to the cellulose backbones. This dissertation describes chemical modification of cellulose and cellulose derivatives to prepare unsulfated and sulfated GAG analogs. Through these studies, we have also discovered novel chemical reactions to modify cellulose. Systematic study of these novel chemistries is also included in this dissertation. We first demonstrated our preparation of two unsulfated GAG analogs by chemical modification of a commercially available cellulose ester. Cellulose acetate was first brominated, followed by azide displacement to introduce azides as the GAG amine precursors. The resulting 6-N3 cellulose acetate was then saponified to liberate 6-OH groups, followed by subsequent (2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-yl)oxyl (TEMPO) oxidation of the liberated primary hydroxyl groups to carboxyl groups. Finally, the azides were reduced to amines using a novel reducing reagent, dithiothreitol (DTT). Alternatively, another process utilized thioacetic acid to reduce azides to a mixture of amine and acetamido groups. Through pursuing these GAG analogs, we applied novel azide reductions by DTT and thioacetic acid that are new to polysaccharide chemistry. We systematically investigated the scope of DTT and thioacetic acid azide reduction chemistry under different conditions, substrates, and functional group tolerance. Selective chlorination is another interesting reaction we discovered in functionalization of cellulose esters. We applied this chlorination reaction to hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC). We then utilized the chlorinated HEC as a substrate for displacement reactions with different types of model nucleophiles to demonstrate the scope of its utility. Overall, we have designed a novel synthetic route to two unsulfated GAG analogs by chemical modification of cellulose acetate. Through exploration of GAG analogs synthesis, we discovered novel methods to modify polysaccharide and polysaccharide derivatives, including azide reduction chemistry and selective chlorination reactions. Successful synthesis of various types of GAG analogs will have great potential biomedical applications and facilitate structure-activity relationship studies.