Human Serum Albumin as Carrier in Drug Delivery Systems

Abstract

Recently, human serum albumin (HSA) has emerged as a versatile carrier for therapeutic agents against diabetes, cancer, and infectious diseases. Market-approved products include fatty acid derivatives of human insulin for diabetes and the paclitaxel-HSA nanoparticle for various cancers such as metastatic breast cancer and advanced pancreatic cancer. In this review, we focus on the next-generation approach including HSA-binding bioactive gas such as nitric oxide (NO) for treating ischemic/reperfusion injury, cancer, and bacterial infection. To date, pharmacologically active compounds that release NO within the body, such as organic nitrates, have been used as therapeutic agents, but their efficacy is significantly limited by unwanted side effects. Therefore, novel NO donors with better pharmacological and pharmacokinetic properties are highly desirable. The S-nitrosothiol fraction in plasma is largely composed of endogenous S-nitrosated HSA (SNO-HSA), which is why we are investigating whether this albumin form can be therapeutically useful. Recently, we have developed SNO-HSA analogues such as SNO-HSA with many conjugated SNO groups (poly-SNO-HSA) prepared using chemical modification. Unexpectedly, we found striking inverse effects between poly-SNO-HSA and SNO-HSA. Despite the fact that SNO-HSA inhibits apoptosis, poly-SNO-HSA possesses very strong pro-apoptotic effects against tumor cells. Furthermore, poly-SNO-HSA can reduce or even completely eliminate the multidrug resistance often developed by cancer cells. In this review, we put forward the possibility that poly-SNO-HSA can be used as a safe, effective multifunctional antitumor agent.