Center for Theragnosis, Biomedical Research Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Hwarangno 14-gil 6, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 136-791, South Korea.
Purdue University, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Pharmaceutics, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
J Control Release. 2014 Nov 10;193:202-13. doi: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2014.05.009. Epub 2014 May 17.
Hydrophobically modified glycol chitosan (hGC) conjugates spontaneously form self-assembled nanoparticles (NPs) in aqueous conditions, and glycol chitosan NPs (CNPs) have been extensively studied for the past few decades. For disease-specific theranostics, CNPs could be simply modified with imaging agents, and the hydrophobic domains of hGC are available for encapsulation of various drugs. Based on the excellent physiochemical and biological properties, CNPs have been investigated for multimodal imaging and target specific drug delivery. In particular, a recent application of CNPs has shown great potential as an efficient theranostic system because the CNPs could be utilized for a disease-specific theranostic delivery system of different imaging agents and therapeutics, simultaneously. Furthermore, various therapeutic agents including chemo-drugs, nucleotides, peptides, and photodynamic chemicals could be simply encapsulated into the CNPs through hydrophobic or charge-charge interactions. Under in vivo conditions, the encapsulated imaging agents and therapeutic drugs have been successfully delivered to targeted diseases. In this article, the overall research progress on CNPs is reviewed from early works. The current challenges of CNPs to overcome in theranostics are also discussed, and continuous studies would provide more opportunities for early diagnosis of diseases and personalized medicine.
疏水性改性壳聚糖（hGC）缀合物在水相条件下自发形成自组装纳米颗粒（NPs），几十年来，壳聚糖 NPs（CNPs）一直被广泛研究。对于针对特定疾病的治疗诊断，CNPs 可以简单地用成像剂进行修饰，并且 hGC 的疏水区可用于封装各种药物。基于其优异的物理化学和生物学特性，CNPs 已被用于多模态成像和靶向药物传递。特别是，CNPs 的最近应用显示出作为高效治疗诊断系统的巨大潜力，因为 CNPs 可以用于不同成像剂和治疗剂的针对特定疾病的治疗诊断传递系统，同时使用。此外，各种治疗剂，包括化疗药物、核苷酸、肽和光动力化学物质，可以通过疏水或电荷-电荷相互作用简单地封装到 CNPs 中。在体内条件下，封装的成像剂和治疗药物已成功递送到靶向疾病部位。本文综述了从早期工作开始对 CNPs 的整体研究进展。还讨论了 CNPs 在治疗诊断中需要克服的当前挑战，持续的研究将为疾病的早期诊断和个性化医疗提供更多机会。
