A novel approach for site specific delivery of chemotherapeutic drug using peptide functionalized metallic nano constructs

Abstract

Amongst the various treatments available for cancer, chemotherapy is the most widely used. Unfortunately, this therapy suffers from numerous shortcomings which make this treatment painful for patients, along with the un-countable side effects and high mortality rate. Numerous reports are available for the synthesis of nanocarriers, However, these systems suffer from various shortcomings such as tedious, time consuming multistep reaction processes, requirement of various functionalized linkers, coupling agents and organic solvents. Keeping these things in mind, our work was focused on the development of the multifunctional drug delivery system in a more efficient, biocompatible and facile manner. In order to develop drug nano-carriers, following three methodologies were designed. newline1) Three-step approach of the development of nano-chemotherapeutic system: use of PEG-MPA capped GNP newline2) Two-step approach of the development of nano-chemotherapeutic system: use of aspartic acid capped GNPs newline3) One-step approach of the development of nano-chemotherapeutic system: use of TAT reduced/capped GNPs newline newlineThe third approach was found to be the most suitable in order to obtain the desired product. The product is unique in terms of not only better defined specifications, but also showed enhanced in-vitro cell penetration and significant anti-cancer activity as compared to therapeutic agent alone. Therefore, a lesser dose of the drug will be required which will lead to a significant decrease in the side effects. The invented technology has potential to treat cancer patients in more proficient manner and with lesser side effects. newline newline