Description
General Description
8-Arm PEG SH is a multifunctional PEG derivative designed for hydrogel fabrication, bioorthogonal conjugation, and advanced biomaterials development. The eight-arm architecture provides a high density of terminal thiol groups, enabling rapid and efficient crosslinking with maleimides, vinyl sulfones, acrylates, norbornenes, epoxides, and other thiol-reactive molecules.
The terminal thiol groups readily react under mild physiological conditions to form stable thioether linkages, making 8-Arm PEG SH particularly suitable for preparing injectable hydrogels, cell-encapsulation matrices, tissue engineering scaffolds, and controlled drug delivery systems. Thiol groups also allow reversible disulfide bond formation for redox-responsive biomaterials.
The PEG backbone provides excellent water solubility, flexibility, and biocompatibility while minimizing nonspecific protein adsorption. Compared with linear PEG derivatives, the eight-arm architecture offers significantly higher crosslinking density, faster gelation, and improved mechanical properties.
Applications
- Hydrogel synthesis
- Thiol-maleimide conjugation
- Thiol-ene click chemistry
- Michael addition reactions
- Polymer crosslinking
- Cell encapsulation
- Tissue engineering
- Drug delivery systems
- Regenerative medicine
- Biomaterials research
Features and Benefits
- Eight terminal thiol groups
- Multi-arm PEG architecture
- Compatible with thiol-maleimide chemistry
- Compatible with thiol-ene click chemistry
- High crosslinking density
- Excellent water solubility
- Excellent biocompatibility
- Low protein adsorption
- Ideal for injectable hydrogels
