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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2008 Aug 1.
Published in final edited form as: Prog Polym Sci. 2007 Aug;32(8-9):1083–1122. doi: 10.1016/j.progpolymsci.2007.05.018

Figure 9.

Figure 9

Strategy for the fabrication of glutathione–responsive and thermally–responsive “doubly smart gels”. Irreversible biochemical degradation of novel PNIPAM–PMPC-S-S-PMPC–PNIPAM “flower micelles” to free–flowing sulfhydryl–terminating micelles by the cleavage of inter–micellar bridges is mediated by the tripeptide, glutathione. The reductive degradation of the interacting micelles to free-flowing micelles results in approximate halving of the original copolymer molecular weight (Modified from Reference [243]).