Materials innovation for co-delivery of diverse therapeutic cargos

Abstract

Co-delivery is a rapidly growing sector of drug delivery that aspires to enhance therapeutic efficacy through controlled delivery of diverse therapeutic cargoes with synergistic activities. It requires the design of carriers capable of simultaneously transporting to and releasing multiple therapeutics at a disease site. Co-delivery has arisen from the emerging trend of combination therapy, where treatment with two or more therapeutics at the same time can succeed where single therapeutics fail. However, conventional combination therapy offers little control over achieving an optimized therapeutic ratio at the target site. Co-delivery via inclusion of multiple therapeutic cargos within the same carrier addresses this issue by not only ensuring delivery of both therapeutics to the same cell, but also offering a platform for control of the delivery process, from loading to release. Co-delivery systems have been formulated using a number of carriers previously developed for single-therapeutic delivery. Liposomes, polymeric micelles, PLGA nanoparticles, and dendrimers have all been adapted for co-delivery. Much of the effort focuses on dealing with drugs having dissimilar properties, increasing loading efficiencies, and controlling loading and release ratios. In this review, we highlight the innovations in carrier designs and formulations to deliver combination cargoes of drug/drug, drug/siRNA, and drug/pDNA toward disease therapy. With rapid advances in mechanistic understanding of interrelating molecular pathways and development of molecular medicine, the future of co-delivery will become increasingly promising and prominent.

Toll-like receptor 3-induced immune response by poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) nanoparticles for dendritic cell-based cancer immunotherapy

“…12 Here, we successfully prepared PLGA-NPs using a w/o/w double emulsion method to encapsulate both OVA and poly I:C. We first confirmed the physical properties of PLGA-NPs, PLGA (OVA)-NPs, PLGA (poly I:C)-NPs, and PLGA (OVA + poly I:C)-NPs ( Figure 2). The mean particle size and zeta potential were around 200±3.69 nm and −30 mV, respectively (Figure 2A and B).…”

“…Poly(d,l-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA)-NPs, which are particularly attractive for clinical and biological applications because of their low toxicity, low immunogenicity, biocompatibility, and biodegradability, 12,13 have been widely utilized as drug carriers in nanomedicine. 14,15 These studies motivated us to know whether PLGA-NPs can increase the uptake efficiency of adjuvant or antigen by DCs and lead to an increase in antigen-specific CD8 + T cell responses.…”

Novel amphiphilic folic acid-cholesterol-chitosan micelles for paclitaxel delivery

“…Moreover, the nanoscale dimension polymeric micelles exhibit tumor accumulation by enhancing permeability and retention (EPR) effect [8]. Chitosan is widely distributed in nature and used in micelle system owing to its good physicochemical characters, including biodegradability, biocompatibility, low toxicity, pH sensitiveness and ease of chemical modification [9].…”

Nanoparticle-mediated inhibition of survivin to overcome drug resistance in cancer therapy

“…For instance, if the small-molecule inhibitor is hydrophilic and without charge, it would be difficult to achieve a sustained release profile from a NP that must also carry a nucleic acid. There has been significant effort in the literature to achieve such goal; some of the strategies may be adopted for the survivin delivery requirements [114].…”