I am functionalizing polymers (Pluronic F127) to use in site specific protein conjugation chemistry. I am capping the polymers with maleimide groups. I have noticed that the yield of conversion is not that high. I have reached 50% functionality but seem to be stuck there. Consequently, the conjugation reactions do not work that well. The same conjugation run with commercially bought MAL-PEG-MAL that is reported at 95% functional work much, much better. I’m hoping if I can remove the unreacted polymer from the Maleimide functionalized polymer, the conjugation reactions will improve.
So, are there scalable chromatographic techniques for purifying large polymers with differing end group functionality? These polymers are on the order of 13 kDa. I am familiar with GPC/GFC as analytical techniques, but am not sure if these can be scaled up to preparative scale. Silica gel doesn’t seem to provide any resolution.
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