Self-assembled peptide hydrogels have emerged as an alternative to the conventional approaches employed in controlled drug release, wound-healing, drug delivery, and anti-infective agents. However, peptide hydrogels, possessing antibacterial property are...
Diabetes mellitus, a multifactorial pathology, is a growing health problem in developed and developing countries of the modern world. Genetic, ethnic, health, dietary habit, sedentary potential, gestational abnormality in addition to other environmental stress factors are the potential stimuli for precipitating diabetic patho-physiology. The chemistry of diabetes and its milieu are multi-directional and cross-connectable. Diabetes is inter-related to hypertension, obesity, atherosclerosis, cardio-arterial disease, stroke and cancer. All these diseases can be transformed from its own pathology to other through some common axle which is still unknown. Advances in modern medicine and biotechnology are in prudent use in global research to strip up the cellular mechanism and its exploitation to bring remedies of these metabolic diseases. The probes of genetic engineering and drug modelling to find less side effects with the advents of information technology, abolition of abnormal genetic messages by DNA/RNA interference and organ grafting with regenerative prostheses by stem cell exploration are among some of the delicate devices to encounter the enmities orchestrated by the inter-locks of these dreadful diseases. This review sieves the prevailing scenario of the disease and its interventions standing in the house of advancements in second decade of this 21 st century.
The utilization of peptide-based drug delivery systems
has been
suboptimal due to their poor proteolytic susceptibility, poor cell
permeability, and limited tumor homing capabilities. Earlier attempts
in using d-enantiomers in peptide sequences increased proteolytic
stability but have compromised the overall penetration capability.
We designed a series of peptides (STRAPs) with a syndiotactic polypeptide
backbone that can potentially form a spatial array of cationic groups,
an important feature that facilitates cellular uptake. The peptides
penetrate cell membranes through a combination of active and passive
modes. Furthermore, the cellular uptake of the peptides was unaffected
by the presence of or treatment with bovine serum and human plasma.
The designed peptides successfully delivered methotrexate, an anticancer
drug, to the in vitro and in vivo models of breast cancer, with the best performing peptide STRAP-4-MTX
conjugate having an EC50 value of 1.34 μM. Peptide drug delivery
in mouse xenograft models showed a greater reduction of primary tumor
and metastasis of breast cancer, in comparison to methotrexate of
the same dose. The in vivo biodistribution assay
of the STRAP-4 peptide suggests that the peptide accumulates at the
tumor site after 2 h of treatment, and in the absence of tumors, the
peptide gets metabolized and excreted from the system.
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