Abstract
Biomedicine represents one of the main study areas for dendrimers, which have proven to be valuable both in diagnostics and therapy, due to their capacity for improving solubility, absorption, bioavailability and targeted distribution. Molecular cytotoxicity constitutes a limiting characteristic, especially for cationic and higher-generation dendrimers. Antineoplastic research of dendrimers has been widely developed, and several types of poly(amidoamine) and poly(propylene imine) dendrimer complexes with doxorubicin, paclitaxel, imatinib, sunitinib, cisplatin, melphalan and methotrexate have shown an improvement in comparison with the drug molecule alone. The anti-inflammatory therapy focused on dendrimer complexes of ibuprofen, indomethacin, piroxicam, ketoprofen and diflunisal. In the context of the development of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains, dendrimer complexes of fluoroquinolones, macrolides, beta-lactamines and aminoglycosides have shown promising effects. Regarding antiviral therapy, studies have been performed to develop dendrimer conjugates with tenofovir, maraviroc, zidovudine, oseltamivir and acyclovir, among others. Furthermore, cardiovascular therapy has strongly addressed dendrimers. Employed in imaging diagnostics, dendrimers reduce the dosage required to obtain images, thus improving the efficiency of radioisotopes. Dendrimers are macromolecular structures with multiple advantages that can suffer modifications depending on the chemical nature of the drug that has to be transported. The results obtained so far encourage the pursuit of new studies.
Highlights
The term “dendrimer” is a combination of two Greek words, “dendron” and “meros”, translated as tree and parts, explaining their branched structure [1]
Docetaxel (DTX)—the surface modification of PAMAM dendrimers is a strategy employed to lower systemic toxicity and to increase tumor targeting [86]. An example of this improvement in efficacy is the case of DTX, indicated in breast cancer: it was conditioned by encapsulating the active molecule of trastuzumab-modified DTX (TZ) on the PAMAM G4 dendrimer surface of the conjugate, using polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a linker
It increased the inhibition of tumor combining the PPI dendrimer with folic acid, which increased the biocompatibility of the active development increased survival, G4, G5
Summary
The term “dendrimer” is a combination of two Greek words, “dendron” and “meros”, translated as tree and parts, explaining their branched structure [1]. Dendrimers have been investigated in relation to medical tasks, the targeted release of active molecules, or gene therapy, due to the malleability of their structure which permits the tailoring of their physicochemical properties [51,52,53] This possibility confers the uniqueness of dendrimers compared to other nanoparticles, their structure on generations (dendrons—branched concentric layers) (offering the possibility of synthesizing dendrimers as monodisperse systems), and the terminal groups offering possibilities for further interaction [54,55,56]
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