Abstract

APTAMERS; A POTENTIAL NANO-CARRIER: AN UPDATE

Ramandeep Saini, Manoj Kumar Katual*, Rajesh Kumar, Amit Sharma and S. L. Harikumar

ABSTRACT

The evolution of novel drug delivery systems is one of the most attractive fields of pharmaceutical technology, as some of the highly effective chemo/bio therapeutics for cancer treatment cannot be administrated due to their high toxicities for normal cells or low stability in physiological media. However, drugs that are currently not administrable will become valuable if specific cell-targeted drug carriers can protect the normal cells from adverse effects and also improve drug pharmacokinetics. Aptamers are attractive and promising biomaterials developed with high affinity and specificity against numerous valuable targets. They could act similar to monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), and offer significant advantages. Combined with aptamers, nanostructures are smart vehicles with remarkable properties for drug delivery. Combination of these two has resulted in the production of various targeted drug delivery systems which are highly efficient in therapeutic and diagnostic applications. Some of the efforts related to design and development of aptamer-targeted nanocarriers have been researched. These have a great importance as smart ligands for targeted drug delivery. Cancer specific aptamers evaluated in combination with nano carriers for diagnostic and therapeutic applications and discussed. Targeted nanocarries facilitate the selectively transport of therapeutics especially to non-normal cells. These are short oligo- nucleotides capable of specific binding to target with high affinity. A wide range of nanocariers have been functionalized with aptamers for targeted drug delivery. It acts against cancer cell surface biomarkers applied in targeted nano-delivery systems.

Keywords: Nanotechnology, Nanocarriers, Nanostructures.