A polymer is composed of many repeated subunits known as monomers. Polymeric macromolecules make up many important natural materials, and because of their broad range of properties, synthetic analogs have been created. Polymers, both natural and synthetic, are created via polymerization of monomers and play an essential and ubiquitous role in everyday life, ranging from synthetic plastics such as polystyrene, to natural biopolymers such as nucleic acids, polypeptides, starch or cellulose.

Biopolymers are polymers that can be broken down into primary monomers o natural byproducts after its intended purposes in the organism making them safe for in vivo use. These polymers are found both naturally and synthetically made, and largely consist of ester, amide, disulphide and acetal or glycosidic functional groups.
Degradable polymeric biomaterials are preferred candidates for developing therapeutic devices or control release drug delivery vehicles. Each of these applications demands materials with specific physical, chemical, biological, biomechanical and degradation properties to provide efficient therapeutics.
In order to be used in medical devices and controlled-drug-release applications, the biodegradable polymer must be biocompatible and meet other criteria to be qualified as biomaterial-processable, sterilizable, and capable of controlled stability or degradation in response to biological conditions.
Their properties and breakdown mechanism are determined by their exact structure.

Our patented synthetic methodology allows us to synthesize polypeptides with defined molecular weight, low polydispersity (<1.2), controlled chain end functionality (including alkyne, azide, amine, aldehyde), adequate stereoselectivity, absence of any trace of toxic impurity to allow biomedical applications and high batch to batch reproducibility.

Our polymers are quantitatively analyzed by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (RMN), circular dichroism, polarimetry and Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC) with three TSK-gel columns connected in series and a detection module quadruple Viscotek TDA 302 detector system to determine the impurities, the average molecular weight in number (Mn), the average molecular weight in weight (Mw), the polydispersity and the polymerization degree.

You can directly place your order through our website, or by writing an email to pts@pts-polymers.com specifying:
a) Quantity
b) Short Name
c) Reference

Our polypeptides must be handled with adequate protection in a laboratory, gloves, goggles, gown, etc. As polypeptides are hygroscopic materials, a dry room with the least possible humidity level should be used to quickly weigh or handle the polymers. Our catalogue products are for laboratory use only and not intended for human use.

Peptides are a class of polymer formed by the conjugation of several amino acids by peptide bonds. Peptides are present in nature and are responsible for a large number of functions. When a peptide is composed of more than 10 amino acids is a polypeptide, and if it has more than 100 is a protein. Polypeptides are biopolymers capable to be obtained by means of natural (bacteria, cells) or synthetic approaches (polymerization).

The polymers we produce at PTS are essentially peptide-based compounds. As peptide degradation and excretion occurs naturally in the organism, polypeptides are biodegradable what makes them very versatile tools for several applications. Chemical reactivity of polypeptides allows for conjugation of chemical compounds to the polymer backbone, such as drugs or imaging probes or other bioactive agents. They can be used as carriers in targeted macromolecular imaging probes and as drug delivery systems for single or combination therapy rationally designed for the treatment of different pathologies such as cancer, neurodegenerative or infectious diseases including also applications in regenerative medicine. Polypeptides are often used as part or even main components for macromolecular scaffolds in the latter application when local administration is required.

Biodegradable polymers are often synthesized by condensation reactions, ring opening polymerization or use of metal catalysts.
In particular, polypeptides can be synthesized by controlled ring opening polymerization (ROP) of ?-N-carboxyanhydrides (NCAs). Although the obtained polymers maybe less defined than recombinant proteins, the polymerization method enables access to polypeptidic architectures, which are beyond nature’s possibilities. Furthermore the ROP of NCAs has already been applied to various applications in different fields of science.
Those applications range from drug delivery systems, tissue engineering, sensing and catalysis to surface coating materials.
PTS uses a versatile and simple methodology for the preparation of well-defined polypeptides. Our patented methodology is based on the use of ammonium salts with non-nucleophilic tetrafluoroborate anions as polymerization initiators. Therefore, living nature of the polymerization can be achieved enabling the synthesis of well-defined high molecular weight homo or block co-polypeptides with preserved end group integrity allowing a multigram scale with defined molecular weight (up to 800 units), low polydispersity (<1.2), controlled chain end functionality and adequate stereoselectivity and absence of any trace of toxic impurity to allow biomedical applications.

Write an email to pts@pts-polymers.com specifying the size and the polymer wanted. PTS is able to synthesize varying lengths and functionalities of the desired polypeptide based on our patented methodology.

Our polypeptide-based materials are hygroscopic, so they must be stored in a dry and completely sealed container under inert atmosphere in a place with low humidity and at -20ºC.