Copolymers of amino acids and methods of their production
AssigneeAquero Company
InventorC. Steven Sikes
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed are copolymers based on aspartic acid or its precursor molecules and methods of their production. The copolymers are water-soluble over a wide range of composition and molecular weight. Their preparation involves conversion of a polysuccinimide to copolymers of defined composition, containing aspartate and succinimide residues and/or residues of asparagine. In particular, the copolymers include water-soluble terpolymers of asp artate, asp aragine, and succinimide.
Claims29
An aspartate copolymer comprising (a) aspartate residues, which may be substituted at the side chain carboxyl, and at least one type of residue selected from (b) asparagine residues, which may be substituted at the side chain nitrogen, and (c) succinimide residues,
- and characterized by
- (i) a molecular weight greater than 5000 Daltons, or
- (ii) a substantially linear morphology and a molecular weight greater than 600 Daltons, or
- (iii) water solubility and a molecular weight greater than 2000 Daltons, or any combination thereof.
A method of synthesizing an aspartate copolymer, the method comprising:
- (a) adding to an aqueous slurry of a polysuccinimide, at a pH of about 8-12, a reagent selected from (i) ammonium hydroxide and (ii) a mixture of ammonium hydroxide and a metal hydroxide, effective to produce a product copolymer containing aspartate and asparagine residues;
- and
- (b) drying said copolymer under non-hydrolytic conditions.
A conjugate of an aspartate copolymer with a polymeric hydroxyl-containing compound, wherein said aspartate copolymer comprises (a) aspartate residues and at least one type of residue selected from (b) asparagine residues and (c) succinimide residues, and is characterized by
- (i) a molecular weight greater than 5000 Daltons, or
- (ii) a substantially linear morphology and a molecular weight greater than 600 Daltons, or
- (iii) water solubility and a molecular weight greater than 2000 Daltons, or any combination thereof.
A method of preparing a copolymer having aspartic acid and succinimide residues, comprising
- treating a solution of a polyaspartate polymer having a cationic non-hydrogen counterion to replace the counterion with hydrogen, by dialysis or ion exchange, and
- lyophilizing the resulting solution.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.