A dominant area of antibody research is the extension of the use of this mighty experimental and therapeutic tool for the specific detection of molecules for diagnostics, visualization, and activity blocking. Despite the ability to raise antibodies against different proteins, numerous applications of antibodies in basic research fields, clinical practice, and biotechnology are restricted to permeabilized cells or extracellular antigens, such as membrane or secreted proteins. With the exception of small groups of autoantibodies, natural antibodies to intracellular targets cannot be used within living cells. This excludes the scope of a major class of intracellular targets, including some infamous cancer-associated molecules. Some of these targets are still not druggable via small molecules because of large flat contact areas and the absence of deep hydrophobic pockets in which small molecules can insert and perturb their activity. Thus, the development of technologies for the targeted intracellular delivery of antibodies, their fragments, or antibody-like molecules is extremely important. Various strategies for intracellular targeting of antibodies via protein-transduction domains or their mimics, liposomes, polymer vesicles, and viral envelopes, are reviewed in this article. The pitfalls, challenges, and perspectives of these technologies are discussed.

IntroductionPhotodynamic therapy (PDT) is a relatively new cytotoxic treatment, predominantly used in anticancer approaches, that depends on the retention of photosensitizers (PS) in tumour cells and their activation within the tumour through irradiation with light of the appropriate wavelength. Photoactivated PS generate reactive oxygen species (singlet oxygen, 1 O 2 , and free radicals, such as ·OH, HO· 2 and ·O 2 -) which are able to damage cellular structures, meaning that PDT is particularly attractive as an alternative means to kill drug-and radioresistant tumour cells.1,2 Normal cells, however, are also able to accumulate PS and be damaged by them, so that prolonged skin photosensitization, light-sensitivity of the eye and other side-effects have proved to be severe limitations of PDT. When photoactivated, PS inflict damage on many types of biomolecules without any specificity, their action being mediated largely via the reactive oxygen species mentioned, none of which travel more than several tens of nanometers before reacting with a biomolecule. Keeping in mind that cell dimensions are of the order of micrometres or tens of micrometres, it is clear that the intracellular action of PS is restricted to the site of their subcellular location and the surrounding radius of not more than 40 nm.3-5 That uneven intracellular distribution of PS can lead to differences in toxicity has been shown using laser microbeam irradiation. 6In contrast to cell membranes and other cytoplasmic organelles, the cell nucleus 7-9 is known to be a very sensitive target for reactive oxygen species. In order to reduce the dose of PS administered to patients and hence minimize the harmful side-effects of PDT, new approaches have been devised to increase the effectiveness of tumour-cell killing through targeted delivery of PS to hypersensitive subcellular sites. These approaches are the focus of the present review. Subcellular distribution of photosensitizersInsomuch as most mammalian cells span tens of micrometres, it is clear that PS efficiency will depend not only on the relative distribution of PS between the tumour and surrounding tissues and between malignant and normal cells, but also on the intracellular distribution of the PS. Furthermore, membranes divide the interior of the eucaryotic cell into compartments that differ markedly in their sensitivity to reactions induced by PS-generated reactive oxygen species, in the ability of damaged molecules to be replaced/recycled and in the extent to which such damage affects cell viability and/or the capability of the cell to divide. It is noteworthy that preferential PS accumulation in tumours is itself not a guarantee of selective photoinduced tumour damage and successful PDT. In experiments on rats with gliosarcoma 9L, 10 for example, it has been found that despite a 13-fold higher accumulation of the PS Photofrin in the tumour compared with Summary Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a novel treatment, used mainly for anticancer therapy, that depends on the retention of photosensitizer...

The ability of nanoparticles and macromolecules to passively accumulate in solid tumors and enhance therapeutic effects in comparison with conventional anticancer agents has resulted in the development of various multifunctional nanomedicines including liposomes, polymeric micelles, and magnetic nanoparticles. Further modifications of these nanoparticles have improved their characteristics in terms of tumor selectivity, circulation time in blood, enhanced uptake by cancer cells, and sensitivity to tumor microenvironment. These “smart” systems have enabled highly effective delivery of drugs, genes, shRNA, radioisotopes, and other therapeutic molecules. However, the resulting therapeutically relevant local concentrations of anticancer agents are often insufficient to cause tumor regression and complete elimination. Poor perfusion of inner regions of solid tumors as well as vascular barrier, high interstitial fluid pressure, and dense intercellular matrix are the main intratumoral barriers that impair drug delivery and impede uniform distribution of nanomedicines throughout a tumor. Here we review existing methods and approaches for improving tumoral uptake and distribution of nano-scaled therapeutic particles and macromolecules (i.e. nanomedicines). Briefly, these strategies include tuning physicochemical characteristics of nanomedicines, modulating physiological state of tumors with physical impacts or physiologically active agents, and active delivery of nanomedicines using cellular hitchhiking.

Although photosensitizers, molecules that produce active oxygen species upon activation by visible light, are being extensively used in photodynamic therapy to treat cancer and other clinical conditions, problems include normal cell and tissue damage and associated side effects, which are attributable in part to the fact that cytotoxic effects are largely restricted to the plasma membrane. We have previously shown that the photosensitizer chlorin e 6 has significantly higher photosensitizing activity when present in conjugates containing specific ligands and thus able to be internalized by receptor-expressing cells. In this study we use insulincontaining conjugates to which variants of the simian virus SV40 large tumor antigen nuclear localization signal (NLS) were linked to target chlorin e 6 to the nucleus, a hypersensitive site for active oxygen species-induced damage. NLSs were either included as peptides crosslinked to the carrier bovine serum albumin or encoded within the sequence of a ␤-galactosidase fusion protein carrier. The results for photosensitization demonstrate clearly for the first time that NLSs increase the photosensitizing activity of chlorin e 6 , maximally reducing the EC 50 by a factor of over 2000-fold. This has widereaching implications for achieving efficient cell typespecific photodynamic therapy.Photosensitizers such as porphyrins are molecules that produce active oxygen species upon activation by visible light and are currently being extensively used in photodynamic therapy to treat cancer and other clinical conditions (1-3). Because normal cells are able to accumulate porphyrins, however, and porphyrins are only excreted slowly from the body, prolonged skin photosensitization as well as other effects can be a problem (4, 5), leading to normal cell and tissue damage (6). A high priority with respect to photodynamic therapy is accordingly to increase the specificity of the uptake of photosensitizers in particular target cells, thereby enabling the active dose of porphyrins administered to patients to be reduced. We have previously shown that the photosensitizer chlorin e 6 has significantly higher photosensitizing activity when present in conjugates containing specific ligands such as insulin or concanavalin A and thus is able to be internalized by receptorexpressing cells (7-9). Photosensitization could be competed by incubating cells in the presence of an excess of unconjugated ligand (7-9), indicating that cellular uptake was receptor-dependent. Because only cells expressing specific receptors are targeted in this approach (see Refs. 7-9), it is clear that it enables selectivity in terms of the cell types targeted for photosensitization.Due to the fact that injury induced by singlet oxygen comprising 80% of all of the active oxygen species generated upon porphyrin activation is localized within less than 0.1 m of the site of its production, the effect of photosensitizers is integrally dependent on their site of cellular accumulation (1). Although most porphyrins such as chlorin e 6...

A major problem in the treatment of cancer is the specific targeting of drugs to these abnormal cells. Ideally, such a drug should act over short distances to minimize damage to healthy cells and target subcellular compartments that have the highest sensitivity to the drug. We describe the novel approach of using modular recombinant transporters to target photosensitizers to the nucleus, where their action is most pronounced, of cancer cells overexpressing ErbB1 receptors. We have produced a new generation of the transporters consisting of (a) epidermal growth factor as the internalizable ligand module to ErbB1 receptors, (b) the optimized nuclear localization sequence of SV40 large T-antigen, (c) a translocation domain of diphtheria toxin as an endosomolytic module, and (d) the Escherichia coli hemoglobin-like protein HMP as a carrier module. The modules retained their functions within the transporter chimera: they showed highaffinity interactions with ErbB1 receptors and A/B-importin dimers and formed holes in lipid bilayers at endosomal pH. A photosensitizer conjugated with the transporter produced singlet oxygen and Á OH radicals similar to the free photosensitizer. Photosensitizers-transporter conjugates have >3,000 times greater efficacy than free photosensitizers for target cells and were not photocytotoxic at these concentrations for cells expressing a few ErbB1 receptors per cell, in contrast to free photosensitizers. The different modules of the transporters, which are highly expressed and easily purified to retain full activity of each of the modules, are interchangeable, meaning that they can be tailored for particular applications.

The search for new pharmaceuticals that are specific for diseased rather than normal cells in the case of cancer and viral disease has raised interest in locally acting drugs that act over short distances within the cell and for which different cell compartments have distinct sensitivities. Thus, photosensitizers (PSs) used in anti-cancer therapy should ideally be transported to the most sensitive subcellular compartments in order for their action to be most pronounced. Here we describe the design, production, and characterization of the effects of bacterially expressed modular recombinant transporters for PSs comprising 1) alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone as an internalizable, cell-specific ligand; 2) an optimized nuclear localization sequence of the SV40 large T-antigen; 3) an Escherichia coli hemoglobin-like protein as a carrier; and 4) an endosomolytic amphipathic polypeptide, the translocation domain of diphtheria toxin. These modular transporters delivered PSs into the nuclei, the most vulnerable sites for the action of PSs, of murine melanoma cells, but not non-MSH receptor-overexpressing cells, to result in cytotoxic effects several orders of magnitude greater than those of nonmodified PSs. The modular fusion proteins described here for the first time, capable of cell-specific targeting to particular subcellular compartments to increase drug efficacy, represent new pharmaceuticals with general application.

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We have evaluated the key properties of the polyethylenimine (PEI)-polyethylene glycol (PEG)-TAT peptide polyplex nanoparticles including their behavior in cells and compared them with the transfection efficacy (TE) using 11 different cell lines. We found statistically significant positive correlation between TE and the share of 50-75 nm fraction in the whole mixture of nanoparticles estimated with atomic force microscopy. Variations in PEG/PEI and N/P ratios (PEI nitrogen to DNA phosphate ratio) enabled us to find their optimal combinations, which resulted in up to 100% TE for several cell lines. Surfaces of the TE dependence of both PEG/PEI and N/P turned out to be similar in appearance for all investigated cell lines, while maximum TEs were different. We investigated subcellular transport kinetics and unpacking of the polyplex nanoparticles labeled with quantum dots (plasmid DNA) and AlexaFluor647 (block-copolymer part) using Förster Resonance Energy Transfer approach. The results demonstrated clear and statistically significant positive correlation of TE with the cellular uptake rate of the nanoparticles and negative correlation with the rate constant of their unpacking within endo/lysosomal compartments in the living cells.