Drug Designing: Open Access
Open Access

Synthesis and characterization of aptamer-navigated drug loaded polymeric micro-particles for enhanced targeted delivery

9^th Annual Congress on Drug Design & Drug Formulation

October 19-20, 2017 Seoul, South Korea

Tan Kei Xian, Safina Ujan, Michael K Danquah and Lau Sie Yon

Curtin University, Malaysia

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Drug Des

Abstract :

Conventional pharmaceutical delivery is often challenged by low targeting capabilities of therapeutic drugs towards malignant or tumor cells and this results in low therapeutic indices with high systemic cytotoxicity to surrounding healthy cells. Targeted drug delivery systems have gained considerable attentions since the emergence of aptamers as a new generation of targeting ligands. Aptamers are DNA or RNA oligonucleotides and can be engineered to target specific cells with high affinity, specificity and selectivity. They are capable of directing and delivering sufficient dosage of therapeutic drugs to targeted tumor cells. Regardless of the aforementioned features, the targeting capability of aptamers is limited by endonuclease attack, electrostatic repulsion and cell membrane barrier, rapid renal clearance and binding stability. This has fostered the application of bio-polymeric particles with tunable properties to create smart aptamer-mediated polymeric delivery systems to provide a sustained and controlled drug release profile with minimal cytotoxic effects. This article reports on the synthesis and biophysical characterization of a novel multifunctional and multilayered co-polymeric targeted delivery system made up of aptamer-conjugated drug-loaded PLGA-PEI (DPAP) formulation. Experimental results demonstrate the potential of the co-polymeric formulation for enhanced in vivo cell targeting and drug delivery.