In order to improve the degradation rate and cellular affinity of polylactic acid (PLA)
more and more importance has been attached to the modification of PLA by amino acids.As an important modification method
copolymer poly(lactic acid-co-amino acid) (PLAA) was usually synthesized via the ring opening polymerization of cyclic intermediates
especially morpholine-2
5-dione.At the same time
the properties and applications of different kinds of PLAA and PLAs modified by amino acid are reviewed.It is necessary to reduce the synthetic cost of PLAAs to extend their applications in the future.Since the cyclic intermediates
including morpholine-2
5-dione were produced from lactic acid (LA) and amino acid (or its derivatives)
the direct economic and effective syntheses of PLAAs using LA and amino acid as starting materials should be noticeable.