Review : Synthetic Polymers with Intrinsic Anticancer Activity

Non-viral cancer gene therapy: Beyond delivery

“…For this reason many of these polymers are now largely considered as potential drug carriers or immunoadjuvants rather than as directly-acting anticancer agents. 8 It is the previous problems with toxicities of such polymers that make these new findings all the more impressive. The authors not only observed little or no toxicity of their vectors but showed that the combination of the anti-tumour and drug delivery ability of vectors with an appropriate anti-tumour gene therapy leads to remarkable anti-cancer effects in experimental models of solid tumours.…”

“…Actually polycations including PEI and PPI have been known to have intrinisic anti-tumour effects for a long time. [4][5][6] Previous data 6 as well as this new study 1 Whereas it seems likely that cationic polymers stimulate the immune system and might also have a direct anti-tumour effect, 8,9 their exact mechanism of anti-tumour activity remains largely unknown. Recent developments in proteomics and transcriptomics might allow a more detailed insight.…”

“…These include poly(lysine), poly(arginine), DEAE-Dextrans, polyacrylic acid, several copolymers of maleic anhydride, polysaccharides such as heparin and chitosan. 8,9 Some polymers showed additive or synergistic anti-tumour effects with conventional cytotoxic agents including enhanced apoptosis 12,13 and inhibition of multidrug resistance.…”

Peptide-Based Polymer Therapeutics

“…Polymer Therapeutics includes five different groups: polymeric drugs, polymers with inherent activity [5,6] polymer-protein conjugates [3,7,8]; polyplexes which are multi-component systems developed as non-viral vectors for gene/small interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) delivery [9,10], polymeric micelles where the bioactive agent is covalently bound [11,12] and polymer-drug conjugates [3] ( Figure 1). This field has been exhaustively revised and the following background references are recommended [4,[13][14][15].…”

Evaluation of Cellulose Xanthate-Metal-Tetracycline Complexes as a Polymeric Antibacterial Agent with Prolonged Antibacterial Activity

“…Interest in the development of polymeric drugs is based on their postulated advantages over simple drugs, such as prolongation of action, variation in reactivity and toxicity, and a possible change in the normal distribution of the drugs (Seymour 1991;Veronese and Morpurgo 1999;Greenwald, Conover, and Choe, 2000;Smyth 2006).…”