title: Advanced drug and gene delivery systems based on functional biodegradable polycarbonates and copolymers.
abstract: Biodegradable polymeric nanocarriers are one of the most promising systems for targeted and controlled drug and gene delivery. They have shown several unique advantages such as excellent biocompatibility, prolonged circulation time, passive tumor targeting via the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect, and degradation in vivo into nontoxic products after completing their tasks. The current biodegradable drug and gene delivery systems exhibit, however, typically low in vivo therapeutic efficacy, due to issues of low loading capacity, inadequate in vivo stability, premature cargo release, poor uptake by target cells, and slow release of therapeutics inside tumor cells. To overcome these problems, a variety of advanced drug and gene delivery systems has recently been designed and developed based on functional biodegradable polycarbonates and copolymers. Notably, polycarbonates and copolymers with diverse functionalities such as hydroxyl, carboxyl, amine, alkene, alkyne, halogen, azido, acryloyl, vinyl sulfone, pyridyldisulfide, and saccharide, could be readily obtained by controlled ring-opening polymerization. In this paper, we give an overview on design concepts and recent developments of functional polycarbonate-based nanocarriers including stimuli-sensitive, photo-crosslinkable, or active targeting polymeric micelles, polymersomes and polyplexes for enhanced drug and gene delivery in vitro and in vivo. These multifunctional biodegradable nanosystems might be eventually developed for safe and efficient cancer chemotherapy and gene therapy.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Polymers Laboratory, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, PR China; Department of Polymer Chemistry and Biomaterials, Faculty of Science and Technology, MIRA Institute for Biomedical Technology and Technical Medicine, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Polymers Laboratory, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, PR China.
authors.forename: Fenghua
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Polymers Laboratory, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, PR China.
authors.forename: Ru
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Polymers Laboratory, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, PR China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Polymers Laboratory, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, PR China; Department of Polymer Chemistry and Biomaterials, Faculty of Science and Technology, MIRA Institute for Biomedical Technology and Technical Medicine, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands. Electronic address: j.feijen@utwente.nl.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Feijen
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Polymers Laboratory, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, PR China. Electronic address: zyzhong@suda.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Zhiyuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhong
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003692:Delayed-Action Preparations; D004337:Drug Carriers; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D018014:Gene Transfer Techniques; D006801:Humans; D015394:Molecular Structure; D053758:Nanoparticles; D011076:Polycarboxylate Cement / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry*; D011108:Polymers / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D003692:Delayed-Action Preparations; D004337:Drug Carriers; D011076:Polycarboxylate Cement; D011108:Polymers; C005506:polycarbonate
keywords: 1,1,1-Tris(hydroxymethyl)ethane (PubChem CID: 6502); 2,2-Bis(hydroxymethyl)-propionic acid (PubChem CID: 78501); Doxorubicin (PubChem CID: 31703); Drug delivery; Epsilon-caprolactone (PubChem CID: 10401); Functional polycarbonates; Gene delivery; Glycolide (PubChem CID: 65432); Lactide (PubChem CID: 7272); Paclitaxel (PubChem CID: 36314); Pentaerythritol (PubChem CID: 8285); Polymeric micelles; Polymersomes; Polyplexes; Trimethylene carbonate (PubChem CID: 123834)