Polysaccharide-Drug Conjugates: A Tool for Enhanced Cancer Therapy

Abstract

Cancer is one of the most widespread deadly diseases, following cardiovascular disease, worldwide. Chemotherapy is widely used in combination with surgery, hormone and radiation therapy to treat various cancers. However, chemotherapeutic drugs can cause severe side effects due to non-specific targeting, poor bioavailability, low therapeutic indices, and high dose requirements. Several drug carriers successfully overcome these issues and deliver drugs to the desired sites, reducing the side effects. Among various drug delivery systems, polysaccharide-based carriers that target only the cancer cells have been developed to overcome the toxicity of chemotherapeutics. Polysaccharides are non-toxic, biodegradable, hydrophilic biopolymers that can be easily modified chemically to improve the bioavailability and stability for delivering therapeutics into cancer tissues. Different polysaccharides, such as chitosan, alginates, cyclodextrin, pullulan, hyaluronic acid, dextran, guar gum, pectin, and cellulose, have been used in anti-cancer drug delivery systems. This review highlights the recent progress made in polysaccharides-based drug carriers in anti-cancer therapy.

Removing the sporoderm from the sporoderm-broken spores of Ganoderma lucidum improves the anticancer and immune-regulatory activity of the water-soluble polysaccharide

“…In addition, it is well-known that natural polymers such as polysaccharides possess inherent biocompatibility and biodegradability, and thus have been widely used for drug delivery system, including anti-cancer drugs (49,50). It was reported that even subtle differences in polymer Mw (such as a few kilodaltons) can affect the efficiency of the drug delivery system using polysaccharides (51).…”

Polysaccharides for Medical Technology: Properties and Applications

“…Various forms of alginate drug delivery vehicles have been prepared, such as microspheres, tablets and nanoparticles. [214] Kianersi at al. [227] prepared alginate nanoparticles for the delivery of betamethasone sodium phosphate, an anti-inflammatory drug via electrospraying, emulsification and a combination of these two methods.…”

“…HA-based drug delivery vehicles are generally in the forms of hydrogel or micelles. [214] Yan et al [224] successfully prepared micelles based on hyaluronic acid-tetraphenyl ethylene conjugate (HA-SS-TPE) with glutathione (GSH) for targeted drug delivery of doxorubicin (DOX). Doxorubicin was incorporated during the self-assembly of HA-SS-TPE, to form DOX-loaded micelles.…”

“…Chemical conjugation of curcumin to chitosan through imine formation leads to improvement in the solubility and stability of curcumin. [ 214 ]…”

The Use of Endo-Cellulase and Endo-Xylanase for the Extraction of Apple Pectins as Factors Modifying Their Anticancer Properties and Affecting Their Synergy with the Active Form of Irinotecan

“…Extracted pectin is mainly used in the food industry as gelling, thickening, emulsifying, and stabilizing agents in a variety of foods [5]. Recently, pectin was also used in the production of edible film coatings [6] as well as drug nanocarriers [7,8]. The recognized biological activities of pectin are very diverse, including the ability to lower serum lipids, cholesterol, and glucose levels, as well as prebiotic activity (reviewed in [9]).…”