One-Step Protein-Polymer Conjugates from Boronic-Acid-Functionalized Polymers.

Polymer-protein conjugates are hybrid materials with interesting and useful properties. Methods to prepare diverse diblock materials of this sort often struggle to deal with the complexity and size of reagents, and so polymer-protein conjugation represents a stringent testing ground for nontraditional bioconjugation methods, such as metal-catalyzed arylation. This work demonstrates a simple Ni2+-promoted arylation of cysteine residues with end-functionalized polymer-boronic acid reagents, and explores some molecular and physical properties possible in these hybrid structures.