title: Recent development of biotin conjugation in biological imaging, sensing, and target delivery.
abstract: Despite encouraging results from preliminary studies of anticancer therapies, the lack of tumor specificity remains an important issue in the modern pharmaceutical industry. New findings indicate that biotin or biotin-conjugates could be favorably assimilated by tumor cells that over-express biotin-selective transporters. Furthermore, biotin can form stable complexes with avidin and its bacterial counterpart streptavidin. The strong bridging between avidin and biotin moieties on other molecules is a proven adaptable tool with broad biological applications. Under these circumstances, a biotin moiety is certainly an attractive choice for live-cell imaging, biosensing, and target delivery.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Korea University, Seoul 136-701, South Korea. jongskim@korea.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Wen Xiu
authors.initials: WX
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Jiyou
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Soojin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Uhm
authors.forename: Yu Jin
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Jang
authors.forename: Chulhun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Jong-Hoon
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jong Seung
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001360:Avidin / Q000737:chemistry; D015374:Biosensing Techniques; D001710:Biotin / Q000737:chemistry*; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D001360:Avidin; D001710:Biotin