Polymer-Protein/Peptide Bioconjugates

This chapter discusses the main synthetic strategies to achieve polymer-protein/peptide bioconjugates. Due to the high amount of publications in this field, it highlights recent examples derived from the use of recent polymerization techniques such as controlled/living radical polymerization (CLRP). The covalent coupling between synthetic polymers and biological entities represents the main strategy with many different well-established coupling methods using native or unnatural functional groups that are available to construct desired bioconjugates. The corresponding reaction between an alkoxyamine and an aldehyde/ketone results in the formation of a stable oxime bond. Different strategies have been implemented so far to achieve polymer-protein/peptide bioconjugates via a non-covalent linkage. The apoenzyme/cofactor reconstitution strategy represents an interesting alternative to the construction of non-covalent polymer-protein bioconjugates. The covalent attachment of initiators can be compatible with not only the grafting from approach but also the non-covalent biotin/streptavidin (SAv) ligation methodology.