• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.205-212
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• 2001

One of the important characteristics of biological systems os their ability to change im-portant properties in response to small environmental signals. The molecular mechanisms that biological molecules utilize to sense and respond provide interesting models for the development of "smart" polymeric biomaterials with biomimetic properties. An important example of this is the protein coat of viruses, which contains peptide units that facilitate the trafficking of the virus into the cell via endocytosis, then out of the endosome into the cytoplasm, and from there into the nucleus, We have designed a family of synthetic polymers whose compositions have been de-signed to mimic specific peptides on viral coats that facilitate endosomal escape. Our biomimetic polymers are responsive to the lowered pH whinin endosomes, leading to distruption of the en-dosomal membrane and release of important biomolecular druges such as DNA, RNA, peptides and proteins to the cytoplasm before they are trafficked to lysosomes and degraded by lysosomal en-zymes. In this article, we review our work on the design, synthesis and action of such smart, pH-sensitive polymers.