Targeting Gliomas
Targeting delivery of therapeutic such as drugs and imaging agents to specific sites is an attractive strategy in terms of improving the safety, efficacy of the therapeutics and diagnostics, which is rendered a variety of advantages including their smaller size, reduced immunogenicity, high multivalency, deep tumor penetration, ease of synthesis, and lower production costs. Creative Biolabs is a leading service provider in targeted delivery, and we provide both custom-specific raw materials of the delivery system and mature targeted delivery products. At present, we are capable to provide a full range of module delivery systems targeting gliomas.
Gliomas
Glioma is a type of tumor that develops in the brain and spinal cord. Gliomas originate from the gluey supportive cells (glial cells) that surround nerve cells and assist them function. Gliomas are classified depending on the type of glial cell involved in the tumor and the tumor's genetic features, which can facilitate predict how the tumor will behave over time and the treatments most likely to work. Generally, gliomas include three main subtypes, astrocytomas, ependymomas and oligodendrogliomas. The glioma disease can influence patients’ brain function and be life-threatening depending on its location and rate of growth. Gliomas represent one of the most common types of brain tumors. The symptoms of glioma often include headache nausea or vomiting, confusion or a decline in brain function, memory loss, personality changes or irritability, difficulty with balance and so on. Different glioma type determines distinct treatment and prognosis. In general, the treatment approaches for glioma include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapy and experimental clinical trials.
Fig.1 Glioma.
Delivery System Targeting Gliomas
To date, chemotherapy of glioma is always limited by the undesirable tumor accumulation of drugs, of which the most significant obstacle is the insufficient drug permeability from vessels into tumor inner. Therefore, plenty of glioma-targeted drug delivery systems have been developed for overcoming the blood brain barrier (BBB) and/or targeting to gliomas, such as receptor-, transporter-, or adsorption-mediated drug delivery according to different transport mechanisms. Receptor-mediated drug delivery acting as one of the major approaches has been widely investigated over the past decade. This kind of drug delivery systems include nanocarriers (such as liposomes, nanoparticles (NPs), polymeric micelles, dendrimers and polymersomes), and various ligands targeting to different receptors such as transferrin receptor (TfR), lactoferrin receptor (LfR), low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR), and folate receptor (FR).
Fig.2 Schematic representation of single ligand-modified targeting systems. (Wang, 2016)
Recently, a novel nanocarrier has been designed for the delivery of doxorubicin (DOX) to brain tumor. The innovative drug delivery system mainly consists of a tumor homing peptide and DOX-loaded PLA nanoparticles (AP1-NP-DOX). CRKRLDRNC peptide, also referred to as AP1, was a newly glioma affinity peptide which could bind to the interleukin-4 receptor (IL-4R) specifically, highly expressing on both glioma cells and angiogenesis. Results showed that the peptide-functionalized nanoparticles had a high affinity with both tumor cells and vascular endothelial cells. The AP1 modified nanoparticles can accumulate more in tumor site compared to the control. Besides, AP1-NP-DOX possesses the ability of BBB penetration. An anti-glioma assay demonstrated that AP1-NP-DOX displayed the highest therapeutic effect on tumor-bearing mice compared with the unmodified nanoparticles and free doxorubicin. Thus, AP1-functionalized nanoparticles could be a promising way to expand the treatment horizons of onco-therapy.
What Can We Do for You?
Creative Biolabs has been dedicated to leveraging our cutting-edge technologies and expertise to facilitate all kinds of targeted delivery systems. We are more than happy to provide professional assistance of targeted drug delivery services for gliomas to our worldwide clients. We can also provide custom delivery systems related to other diseases of your interest. Please feel free to contact us for more information.
Reference
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Wang, S.; et al. Receptor-mediated drug delivery systems targeting to glioma. Nanomaterials. 2016, 6(1), 3.
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