Chapter 13 - Nanobiocatalysts for drug delivery

Abstract

Advanced nanomaterials have found applications in several disciplines of medicine, including diagnostic bioimaging, chemotherapy, targeted drug administration, and biosensors, owing to the emerging era of nanotechnology. They have been functionalized and widely employed because of biocompatibility, simple design, and creation. Enzymes are important nanobiotechnology tools because they have excellent biorecognition and catalytic activities. The subsequent enzyme-responsive nanoparticles may be tailored to carry out activities proficiently and with excellent specificity for the triggering stimuli when these enzymes are paired with the exceptional physical features of nanomaterials. This potent notion has been effectively used to fabricate drug delivery schemes in which nanosystems with specific responsiveness to enzymes that are enhanced at diseased areas are created, resulting in targeted drug release at the desired site. This chapter has discussed an overview of drug delivery systems that can carry therapeutics to the tumor microenvironment and activate drug release in response to specific enzymes that are highly expressed in certain tumor tissues. Following that, we look at newly fabricated enzyme-responsive nanomaterials that can be used for extracellular, intracellular, synergistic, and targeted drug delivery.