School of Life Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong, China.
Key Laboratory of Carbohydrate Chemistry and Biotechnology, Ministry of Education, School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China.
Carbohydr Polym. 2021 Feb 1;253:117258. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2020.117258. Epub 2020 Oct 20.
Use of polysaccharides as carriers in drug delivery system is a hot topic, especially those with specific recognition of immune cells, enabling them to be applied in targeting delivery system. β-d-glucans are naturally occurring non-digestible polysaccharides with immunomodulatory activities that have attracted increasing attention to serve as therapeutic agents or immune-adjuvants. Being able to be specifically recognized by immune cells like macrophages, β-d-glucans can be developed as promising carriers for targeting delivery with stability, biocompatibility and specificity when applied in immunotherapy. Targeting tumor associated macrophages (TAMs) is an emerging strategy for cancer immunotherapy since it exerts anti-cancer effects based on modulating body immunity in tumor microenvironment (TME). This new strategy does not require high concentration of drugs to kill cancer cells directly and lessen tumor recurrence by creating unique immune memory for malignant cells. In this review, construction strategies of polysaccharide-based drug delivery system of three types of β-d-glucan including non-yeast and yeast β-d-glucans as well as hyper-branched β-d-glucan are discussed with reference to their branching characteristics and conformation. The applications of these β-d-glucans as nano-carrier for drug delivery targeting TAMs are also discussed.
多糖作为药物传递系统的载体是一个热门话题，特别是那些对免疫细胞具有特定识别能力的多糖，使它们能够应用于靶向传递系统。β-d-葡聚糖是一种天然存在的不可消化的多糖，具有免疫调节活性，越来越受到关注，可以作为治疗剂或免疫佐剂。β-d-葡聚糖能够被巨噬细胞等免疫细胞特异性识别，当应用于免疫治疗时，β-d-葡聚糖可以作为一种具有稳定性、生物相容性和特异性的有前途的靶向传递载体。靶向肿瘤相关巨噬细胞（TAMs）是癌症免疫治疗的一种新兴策略，因为它通过调节肿瘤微环境（TME）中的机体免疫力来发挥抗癌作用。这种新策略不需要高浓度的药物直接杀死癌细胞，而是通过为恶性细胞创造独特的免疫记忆来减少肿瘤复发。在这篇综述中，讨论了三种类型的β-d-葡聚糖（包括非酵母和酵母β-d-葡聚糖以及超支化β-d-葡聚糖）的基于多糖的药物传递系统的构建策略，参考了它们的支化特征和构象。还讨论了这些β-d-葡聚糖作为靶向传递 TAMs 的药物纳米载体的应用。
