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Published on: March 6, 2019
Disulfide-Based Self-Immolative Linkers and Functional Bioconjugates for Biological Applications
Zhengyu Deng1, Jinming Hu1, Shiyong Liu1
1CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, 230026, China.
Disulfide self-immolative linkers (DSILs) offer a versatile method to mask and activate bioactive agents. DSILs overcome limitations of direct disulfide conjugation for improved therapeutic and diagnostic applications.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Organic Chemistry
- Drug Delivery
Background:
- Reversible masking and selective activation of bioactive agents are crucial for advanced therapeutics and diagnostics.
- Redox-responsive disulfide linkages, utilizing glutathione (GSH) gradients, are widely employed.
- Direct disulfide conjugation faces challenges like steric hindrance and limited trigger-drug combinations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review recent advancements in disulfide self-immolative linkers (DSILs).
- To highlight emerging chemical design strategies for DSILs.
- To discuss the functional applications of DSILs in the biomedical field.
Main Methods:
- Review of recent scientific literature on DSILs.
- Analysis of chemical design principles for DSILs.
- Examination of DSIL applications in sensing, diagnostics, and drug delivery.
Main Results:
- DSILs provide a general and robust strategy for masking bioactive agents.
- DSILs enable selective activation via disulfide cleavage in reductive cytoplasmic environments.
- DSILs overcome steric hindrance and expand trigger-drug combination options compared to direct disulfide conjugation.
Conclusions:
- DSILs represent a significant development in controlled bioactive agent delivery.
- The versatility of DSILs supports diverse biomedical applications.
- Further research into DSIL chemical design and applications is warranted.
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