We report on the synthesis and solution properties of novel tailor-made polymer conjugates, which are highly compelling for biomedical applications due to their antioxidant activity and the potential to fine-tune their thermosensitive properties. These conjugates consist of polyethylene glycol (PEG) polymers containing antioxidant moieties, namely 3-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)propionate or 2-benzamido-3-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)acrylate, as end groups that differ in activity and hydrophobicity. It was shown that all of the synthesized conjugates have low critical solution temperatures (LCSTs) characteristic of type II polymers on a phase diagram. By simply varying the PEG molecular weight, the solution properties, including the LCST value, could be easily tuned across a broad
temperature range of 20–90
? C, providing an ideal method for the creation of thermosensitive
polymers. It was also established that the LCST value and the polymer conjugate conformation depend
on the antioxidant struct