Wang Dawei, Xu Wei, Liu Yuxin, Chen Luying, He Ting, Tan Hong, He Shuting, Zhu Jie, Wang Caiting, Yu Zhongyang, Li Chong, Pan Weidong, Rao Wei, Liu Jing
Key Laboratory of Plant Resource Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025. Guizhou Province, China.
Guizhou Provincial Key Laboratory of Innovation and Manufacturing for Pharmaceuticals/Guizhou Engineering Laboratory for Synthetic Drugs, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025. Guizhou Province, China.
Theranostics. 2025 Aug 11;15(17):8795-8821. doi: 10.7150/thno.116184. eCollection 2025.
The room temperature liquid metal gallium, as a multi-targeted pharmacologically active metallic element with long historical investigation, has shown great potential in the field of medicine, especially in antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, osteogenesis, radio-pharmacology, molecular imaging and more emerging drug categories. However, diverse structures and physical/chemical compositions, complex interactions with living organisms, and insufficient mechanism interpretation, pose serious challenges for the clinical translation of gallium-based pharmaceuticals. This review systematically identified and described promising gallium-based pharmaceuticals, with emphasis on typical features, fundamental pharmaceutical activities, representative pharmaceutical formulations, and practical implementations, aiming to inspire innovative concepts for drug discovery and further investigation. Meaningfully, new insights into gallium-based liquid metals for screening pharmaceutical formulations are presented, which promise to bring broader strategies for enhancing the bioavailability, targetability, biocompatibility and pharmacological efficacy of active pharmaceutical ingredients (Ga(0)/Ga(III)). Besides, the unresolved challenges and future perspectives of these emerging gallium-based pharmaceuticals were also outlined, aiming to aid for future academic explorations and translational medicine of gallium-based pharmaceuticals. Overall, gallium-based pharmaceuticals with tremendous pharmaceutical formulations and pharmaceutical activities open up a huge scope great potential for future pharmaceutical engineering, which are promising to usher epochal metallodrug development with a series of breakthrough discoveries and pioneering technologies.
室温液态金属镓作为一种经过长期研究的多靶点药理活性金属元素，在医学领域已显示出巨大潜力，尤其是在抗菌、抗炎、抗癌、骨生成、放射药理学、分子成像以及更多新兴药物类别方面。然而，镓基药物多样的结构和物理/化学组成、与生物体的复杂相互作用以及对作用机制解释的不足，给镓基药物的临床转化带来了严峻挑战。本综述系统地识别并描述了有前景的镓基药物，重点关注其典型特征、基本药理活性、代表性药物制剂以及实际应用，旨在激发药物发现和进一步研究的创新理念。有意义的是，本文提出了关于镓基液态金属用于筛选药物制剂的新见解，有望为提高活性药物成分（Ga(0)/Ga(III)）的生物利用度、靶向性、生物相容性和药理疗效带来更广泛的策略。此外，还概述了这些新兴镓基药物尚未解决的挑战和未来前景，旨在助力镓基药物未来的学术探索和转化医学。总体而言，具有众多药物制剂和药理活性的镓基药物为未来药物工程开辟了巨大的潜力空间，有望通过一系列突破性发现和开创性技术引领划时代的金属药物发展。
