Molecular Communication Model for Targeted Drug Delivery in Multiple Disease Sites With Diversely Expressed Enzymes

Targeted drug delivery (TDD) for disease therapy using liposomes as nanocarriers has received extensive attention in the literature. The liposome's ability to incorporate capabilities such as long circulation, stimuli responsiveness, and targeting characteristics, makes it a versatile nanocarrier. Timely drug release at the targeted site requires that trigger stimuli such as pH, light, and enzymes be uniquely overexpressed at the targeted site. However, in some cases, the targeted sites may not express trigger stimuli significantly, hence, achieving effective TDD at those sites is challenging. In this paper, we present a molecular communication-based TDD model for the delivery of therapeutic drugs to multiple sites that may or may not express trigger stimuli. The nanotransmitter and nanoreceiver models for the molecular communication system are presented. Here, the nanotransmitter and nanoreceiver are injected into the targeted body system's blood network. The compartmental pharmacokinetics model is employed to model the transportation of these therapeutic nanocarriers to the targeted sites where they are meant to anchor before the delivery process commences. We also provide analytical expressions for the delivered drug concentration. The effectiveness of the proposed model is investigated for drug delivery on tissue surfaces. Results show that the effectiveness of the proposed molecular communication-based TDD depends on parameters such as the total transmitter volume capacity, the receiver radius, the diffusion characteristic of the microenvironment of the targeted sites, and the concentration of the enzymes associated with the nanotransmitter and the nanoreceiver designs.