Active Drug Targeting of Disease by Nanoparticles Functionalized with Ligand to Folate Receptor

Abstract

Drug-loaded nanoparticles have shown great potential in the study of carriers for disease-targeting drug delivery. Drug-loaded nanoparticles are excellent in keeping the drug in the systemic circulation for a prolonged period of time, introducing targeting molecules to improve targeting efficiency and to reduce side effects. A general review on active drug targeting of cancerous diseases by nanoparticles functionalized with ligands to folate receptors is presented including the (1) materials and methods for nanoparticle preparation, (2) methods for drug encapsulation, (3) surface functionalization of the nanoparticle with ligand to folate receptors, and (4) in vitro and in vivo experiments.

Injectable Glycol Chitosan Hydrogel Containing Folic Acid-Functionalized Cyclodextrin-Paclitaxel Complex for Breast Cancer Therapy

“…Conjugation of a methacrylic group to the GC backbone leads to a photopolymerizable hydrogel using visible-light irradiation. For CDPF, folic acid (FA) and β-CD were used as a ligand for cell targeting and reservoir for drug loading, respectively [10,11,[14][15][16]. The anti-cancer efficacy of MGC/CDPF-ic-PTX using a tumor-bearing xenograft mouse model was evaluated.…”

Emerging Therapeutic Delivery Capabilities and Challenges Utilizing Enzyme/Protein Packaged Bacterial Vesicles

“…Encapsulation of a therapeutic agent provides protection from proteolytic cleavage and immune recognition and generally improves the stability of compounds allowing for increased circulation times and larger amounts of active drug being delivered to its intended target [10]. Outside facing targeting moieties provide for multivalent target-nanoparticle interactions to improve targeting specificity and avidity [11].…”

Fast Targeting and Cancer Cell Uptake of Luminescent Antibody‐Nanozeolite Bioconjugates

“…Current design of nanomaterials for cancer theranostics rely on the use of anchored ligands[2d,9] (i.e., folic acid or hyaluronic acid) to impart targeting properties and receptor mediated endocytosis . Antibody bioconjugation is an even more convenient strategy for nanomaterial functionalization because, compared to other ligand‐based approaches, yielded derivatives retaining their biological properties even in serum supplemented medium, being thus resistant to the biological modulation by the protein corona .…”