Semiflexible polymer scaffolds: an overview of conjugation strategies

Abstract

Semiflexible polymers play an important role in nature and possess remarkable properties that render them efficient scaffolds. While flexible polymers coil up, semiflexible polymers are rigid enough to retain a straight conformation and thus facilitate access to substituents on the polymer chain. This review describes how semiflexible polymers function as scaffolds and which chemical strategies are used to conjugate substituents to this unique class of polymers. In general, biopolymeric scaffolds are functionalized through post-functionalization strategies, which generates versatility but offers low spatial control. Synthetic polymeric scaffolds can be designed and functionalized from scratch, which provides a larger freedom in design and conjugation strategies. Altogether, this review summarizes the most important methods that are available to the chemist, which have been developed to generate truly functional semiflexible scaffolds.