Lipoates as building blocks of sulfur-containing branched macromolecules

Under radical polymerization conditions, 2-acryloyloxyethyl lipoate (AOELp) yielded, prior to gelation, soluble, highly branched, reductively degradable disulfide-containing polymers. The reduction of AOELp afforded a dithiol acrylate, which participated in radical or ionic step-growth thiol-ene reactions, yielding highly branched reductively non-degradable polymers with thioether-type sulfur atoms in the backbones.