title: Toxins and derivatives in molecular pharmaceutics: Drug delivery and targeted therapy.
abstract: Protein and peptide toxins offer an invaluable source for the development of actively targeted drug delivery systems. They avidly bind to a variety of cognate receptors, some of which are expressed or even up-regulated in diseased tissues and biological barriers. Protein and peptide toxins or their derivatives can act as ligands to facilitate tissue- or organ-specific accumulation of therapeutics. Some toxins have evolved from a relatively small number of structural frameworks that are particularly suitable for addressing the crucial issues of potency and stability, making them an instrumental source of leads and templates for targeted therapy. The focus of this review is on protein and peptide toxins for the development of targeted drug delivery systems and molecular therapies. We summarize disease- and biological barrier-related toxin receptors, as well as targeted drug delivery strategies inspired by those receptors. The design of new therapeutics based on protein and peptide toxins is also discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University & Key Laboratory of Smart Drug Delivery (Fudan University), Ministry of Education, Shanghai 201203, PR China.
authors.forename: Changyou
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhan
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southwest University & Chongqing Engineering Research Center for Pharmaceutical Process and Quality Control, Chongqing 400716, PR China.
authors.forename: Chong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University & Key Laboratory of Smart Drug Delivery (Fudan University), Ministry of Education, Shanghai 201203, PR China; State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and the Collaborative Innovation Center for Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiaoli
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Institute of Human Virology and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA.
authors.forename: Wuyuan
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University & Key Laboratory of Smart Drug Delivery (Fudan University), Ministry of Education, Shanghai 201203, PR China; State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and the Collaborative Innovation Center for Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, PR China; State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, PR China. Electronic address: wylu@shmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Weiyue
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy; D014118:Toxins, Biological / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use*
chemical_list: D014118:Toxins, Biological
keywords: Blood-brain barrier; Drug delivery; Glioma; Peptide; Protein; Targeted therapy; Toxin