Biocompatibility evaluation of aniline oligomers with different end-functional groups

Abstract

With the ever increasing interest in biomedical applications of aniline oligomers, carefully and systematically evaluating their biocompatibility is of significant importance. In this paper, aniline oligomers with different end-functional groups (tetramer terminated with gluocose (T–G), pentamer terminated with amino group (P–NH₂) and pentamer terminated with carboxyl group (P–COOH)) were synthesized. Their cellular responses to adenocarcinomic human alveolar basal epithelial (A549) cells and human cervical carcinoma (HeLa) cells were investigated for the first time. To verify their potential for in vivo biomedical applications, the interactions between aniline oligomers and red blood cells (RBCs) were further examined. Results indicated that end groups of oligomers affected their cell response. Among all tested molecules, T–G showed the greatest cytotoxicity to both types of cells. Compared with HeLa cells, all oligomers exhibited better biocompatibility with A549 cells. Furthermore, the cell membrane of RBCs was still kept intact after incubation with aniline oligomers for over 4 h, indicating that the cytotoxicity of aniline oligomers was not due to the rupture of the cell membrane. We expect that these results could be helpful to understand the cytotoxicity of aniline oligomers and may give valuable instructions to design biocompatible aniline oligomers for biomedical applications.