Synthesis strategies for disulfide bond-containing polymer-based drug delivery system for reduction-responsive controlled release

Abstract

Tumor micro-environment responsive drug delivery systems (DDSs) have been developed as a potential approach to reduce the side effects of cancer chemotherapy. Glutathione (GSH) has been supposed to the most significant signal of the difference between the normal tissue and the tumor cells, besides the media pH and temperature. In recent years, the reduction-responsive DDSs have attracted more and more attention for delivery of anti-cancer drugs, based on such physiological signal. Among them, disulfide bond-containing polymers have been designed as the main tool for the purpose. The recent progress in the synthesis strategies for the disulfide bond-containing polymer-based DDS is focused in the present review.

Keywords

drug delivery system (DDS) / reduction-responsive / disulfide bond-containing polymer / tumor micro-environment responsive

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Acknowledgements

This project was granted financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 20904017) and the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (Grant No. NCET-09-0441).

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg