Issue 7, 2016

Interactions of dendrimers with biological drug targets: reality or mystery – a gap in drug delivery and development research

Abstract

Dendrimers have emerged as novel and efficient materials that can be used as therapeutic agents/drugs or as drug delivery carriers to enhance therapeutic outcomes. Molecular dendrimer interactions are central to their applications and realising their potential. The molecular interactions of dendrimers with drugs or other materials in drug delivery systems or drug conjugates have been extensively reported in the literature. However, despite the growing application of dendrimers as biologically active materials, research focusing on the mechanistic analysis of dendrimer interactions with therapeutic biological targets is currently lacking in the literature. This comprehensive review on dendrimers over the last 15 years therefore attempts to identify the reasons behind the apparent lack of dendrimer–receptor research and proposes approaches to address this issue. The structure, hierarchy and applications of dendrimers are briefly highlighted, followed by a review of their various applications, specifically as biologically active materials, with a focus on their interactions at the target site. It concludes with a technical guide to assist researchers on how to employ various molecular modelling and computational approaches for research on dendrimer interactions with biological targets at a molecular level. This review highlights the impact of a mechanistic analysis of dendrimer interactions on a molecular level, serves to guide and optimise their discovery as medicinal agents, and hopes to stimulate multidisciplinary research between scientific, experimental and molecular modelling research teams.

Graphical abstract: Interactions of dendrimers with biological drug targets: reality or mystery – a gap in drug delivery and development research

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
04 Feb 2016
Accepted
02 Apr 2016
First published
21 Apr 2016

Biomater. Sci., 2016,4, 1032-1050

Interactions of dendrimers with biological drug targets: reality or mystery – a gap in drug delivery and development research

S. Ahmed, S. B. Vepuri, R. S. Kalhapure and T. Govender, Biomater. Sci., 2016, 4, 1032 DOI: 10.1039/C6BM00090H

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements