Recent Progress and Advances in Stimuli-Responsive Polymers for Cancer Therapy.

N Vijayakameswara Rao,Jeongjin Lee,Hyewon Ko,Jae Hyung Park

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2018.00110

Abstract

The conventional chemotherapeutic agents, used for cancer chemotherapy, have major limitations including non-specificity, ubiquitous biodistribution, low concentration in tumor tissue, and systemic toxicity. In recent years, owing to their unique features, polymeric nanoparticles have been widely used for the target-specific delivery of drugs in the body. Although polymeric nanoparticles have addressed a number of important issues, the bioavailability of drugs at the disease site, and especially upon cellular internalization, remains a challenge. A polymer nanocarrier system with a stimuli-responsive property (e.g., pH, temperature, or redox potential), for example, would be amenable to address the intracellular delivery barriers by taking advantage of pH, temperature, or redox potentials. With a greater understanding of the difference between normal and pathological tissues, there is a highly promising role of stimuli-responsive nanocarriers for drug delivery in the future. In this review, we highlighted the recent advances in different types of stimuli-responsive polymers for drug delivery.

Highlights

Cancer is a common cause of death every year worldwide (Siegel et al, 2017)
The endogenous stimuliresponsive system relies on the abnormal environments in diseased tissues for target-specific drug delivery, while the exogenous stimuli-responsive one needs prior knowledge on the location of the target site for effective therapy
The surface of stimuli-responsive polymers would be quickly covered with biological molecules such as serum proteins which play a vital role in determining the subsequent bio-distribution and cellular responses of polymers

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Cancer is a common cause of death every year worldwide (Siegel et al, 2017). Chemotherapy is the major treatment for cancer patients. Bae et al prepared intracellular pH-sensitive polymeric micelles of PEGpoly(aspartate-hydrazone-adriamycin) that can release the drug DOX at endosomes (pH 5.0–6.0) and lysosomes (pH 4.0–5.0) This designed polymer maximizes the DOX delivery efficiency to the tumor tissue (Bae et al, 2005). The micelles exhibited proper intracellular pH-triggered drug release capability and effective antitumor suppression with low toxicity In another recent report, Wu et al reported monoclonal antibody 2C5DSPE-poly(ethylene glycol) and poly (histidine)-poly(ethylene glycol) mixed micelles for paclitaxel drug delivery (Wu et al, 2013). Wu et al reported monoclonal antibody 2C5DSPE-poly(ethylene glycol) and poly (histidine)-poly(ethylene glycol) mixed micelles for paclitaxel drug delivery (Wu et al, 2013) These micelles enhanced tumor internalization by 2C5-mediated endocytosis and triggered drug release, resulting in improved anticancer efficacy.

Results

III III II I I

CONCLUSION