Pravin Shende* and Gauraja Deshpande Pages 5353 - 5361 ( 9 )
Background: The progressive treatment of cancer using disulfide bond-based therapeutics offers improvement in therapeutic potency of active, reduction in adverse events, prolongation of drug release pattern and on-site action by interacting with neoplastic cell microenvironment.
Objective: The objective of this article is to highlight the research carried out on disulfide bond-based drug delivery systems as a potential candidate for cancer treatment.
Methods: The article provides an overview of the importance of disulfide bonds in cancer treatment in terms of their properties, mechanism of formation/fragmentation and applications. Properties of disulfide bonds, such as pKa, entropy, and dihedral angle contribute to the structural stability of the bonds in a nanotherapeutic system, while their formation and fragmentation are attributed to the presence of a high concentration of GSH in cancer cells. The article further focuses on various drug delivery systems like dendrimers, liposomes, micelles, etc. involving disulfide cross-linked polymers for the preparation of redox-responsive drug delivery systems.
Results: The use of nanotechnology with disulfide bond creates an anticancer drug delivery system with higher target specificity, improved bioavailability, and good therapeutic efficacy.
Conclusion: In the near future, the combination of DSB with active, cellular material, stem cell and biological fluid will be considered as a new thrust area for research in healthcare.
Disulfide bonds, glutathione, tumor tissue, reduction responsiveness, cross-linked polymers, redox-responsive drug delivery systems.
Shobhaben Pratapbhai Patel School of Pharmacy and Technology Management, SVKM’s NMIMS, V. L. Mehta Road, Vile Parle (W), Mumbai, Shobhaben Pratapbhai Patel School of Pharmacy and Technology Management, SVKM’s NMIMS, V. L. Mehta Road, Vile Parle (W), Mumbai