The application of pillararene-based GSH depletion strategy in tumor therapy

Abstract

Nowadays, depleting the intracellular glutathione (GSH) to improve the therapeutic efficacy of tumors is quite an appealing field. However, regardless of which strategy is adopted, one of the most crucial aspects is to precisely and efficiently deliver the GSH-depleting agents to the lesion locations. In addition, in order to demonstrate its value, the GSH depletion technology also needs to be combined with one or more therapeutic methods. Thus, an efficient drug delivery systems (DDSs) is particularly crucial in this therapeutic approach. Pillararenes, as an emerging supramolecular tool, own numerous unique merits that make them very promising in DDSs, such as structure flexibility, functionality richness, and assembly controllability. Pillararene-based nanodrugs can readily incorporate GSH-depleting agents due to the abundant modification sites and the excellent capacity for guest recognition of pillararenes. Over the past decade, pillararene-based GSH depletion tumor therapy technologies have shown a steep rise. In this short review, we outlined the commonly employed GSH depletion strategy in pillararene-based nanodrugs for chemotherapy, photodynamic therapy, gasotransmitter-based therapy or their combined therapy towards tumors. At the end, some challenges in such field were also discussed to identify the directions that can be pursued for improvement. We hope that the thorough overview will inspire researchers to continue to delve deeper into this field, and create more innovative and practical tumor treatment solutions.