Self-assembled peptide-based nanostructures: Smart nanomaterials toward targeted drug delivery

Abstract

Self-assembly of peptides can yield an array of well-defined nanostructures that are highly attractive nanomaterials for many biomedical applications such as drug delivery. Some of the advantages of self-assembled peptide nanostructures over other delivery platforms include their chemical diversity, biocompatibility, high loading capacity for both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs, and their ability to target molecular recognition sites. Furthermore, these self-assembled nanostructures could be designed with novel peptide motifs, making them stimuli-responsive and achieving triggered drug delivery at disease sites. The goal of this work is to present a comprehensive review of the most recent studies on self-assembled peptides with a focus on their “smart” activity for formation of targeted and responsive drug-delivery carriers.

Peptide Self-Assembled Nanostructures for Drug Delivery Applications

“…In this section, peptide self-assembled nanostructures for anticancer drug and gene drug delivery as well as targeted and stimuli responsive drug delivery are illustrated and discussed in detail. The most desired properties for self-assembled nanostructures are biocompatibility, biodegradability, and multifunctionality for drug delivery applications [17,114]. Compared to other organic materials for drug delivery, peptide self-assembled nanostructures are more suitable due to their intrinsic physical and biological properties.…”

“…Recently, many self-assembly nanostructures have been synthesized from biomaterials including carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and peptides to achieve a better understanding of the self-assembly mechanism and utilize them for several biomedical applications such as tissue regeneration, drug delivery, and biosensors [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Many self-assembling systems have been developed for various biomedical applications; peptide self-assembled nanostructures remain one of the most promising directions for many reasons [18].…”

Self-Healing Hydrogels as Biomedical Scaffolds for Cell, Gene and Drug Delivery

“…The most widely used are the simple chain polymer, such as, polyethylene glycol (PEG), polyacrylic acid (PAA), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), which have clear structure and modification [22,38] . Another important kind is the derivative polymer from the nature, polypeptide and polysaccharide, such as collagen, hyaluronic acid, alginate, gelatin, glucose, chitosan, chitin and cellulose [22,[39][40][41][42][43] . Poly(L-glutamic acid) (PLGA) is one kind of ideal polypeptide, which exhibits nontoxicity, hydrophilicity, biodegradability, and avoiding antigenicity or immunogenicity [44] .…”

Ultrasound-facilitated assembly and disassembly of a pH-sensitive self-assembly peptide

“…For example, the biological application of peptidebased biomaterials as drug carriers requires appropriate responsiveness towards different stimuli for controlled drug release. [6][7][8] The strategies to enhance the stimuli-responsiveness have been broadly studied, and examples include the addition of stimuli-sensitive units (such as pH-sensitive histidine/ hydrazine or redox-sensitive disulphide-bond) into the peptide assemblies to achieve intracellular stimuli-triggered drug release. [6][7][8] External stimuli, such as light, ultrasound etc., have also been explored to control drug release.…”