Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
15
Smart Polypeptide Nanocarriers for
Malignancy h
erapeutics
Jianxun Ding, Di Li, Xiuli Zhuang and Xuesi Chen*
Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied
Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, People's Republic of China
Abstract
Nowadays, malignancy (i.e., cancer) has been one of the major global causes of
morbidity and mortality. In the past few decades, the attractive potentiality of
anticancer nanomedicines has led to explosive research of polymeric nanocar-
riers, which exhibit targeting, modii able and controlled drug delivery capabili-
ties. Based on the previous works and in view of the physiological repellents of
drug delivery
in vivo
, some fruitful ef orts have recently focused on the design and
investigation of smart drug delivery systems with stimuli-responsive polypeptides
as matrices. Polypeptides, consisting of repeated amino acid units, are unique
biocompatible and biodegradable synthetic polymers with mimicking structures
of natural proteins. In addition, various merits, such as their dexterous stimuli-
responsiveness to external environmental changes, make polypeptides become
promising materials for intelligent antitumor drug delivery. In this chapter, we
have reviewed the recent advances in stimuli-responsive polypeptide nanocarri-
ers, especially pH and/or reduction-responsive ones, for malignancy therapeutics.
Keywords:
Malignancy therapies, nanocarriers, polypeptides, stimuli-responsive
15.1 Introduction
Malignancy (also called cancer) has been one of the most serious world-
wide diseases that threaten human health and even life [1-3]. Despite
the remarkable developments of various antitumor drugs including
