Dendrimers in biomedical applications--reflections on the field.

Poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers: from biomimicry to drug delivery and biomedical applications

Dendrimers are versatile, derivatisable, well-defined, compartmentalised chemical polymers with sizes and physicochemical properties resembling those of biomolecules e.g. proteins. The present critical review (citing 158 references) briefly describes dendrimer design, nomenclature and divergent/convergent dendrimer synthesis. The characteristic physicochemical features of dendrimers are highlighted, showing the effect of solvent pH and polarity on their spatial structure. The use of dendrimers in biological systems are reviewed, with emphasis on the biocompatibility of dendrimers, such as in vitro and in vivo cytotoxicity, as well as biopermeability, biostability and immunogenicity. The review deals with numerous applications of dendrimers as tools for efficient multivalent presentation of biological ligands in biospecific recognition, inhibition and targeting.
 Dendrimers may be used as drugs for antibacterial and antiviral treatment and have found use as antitumor agents. The review highlights the use of dendrimers as drug or gene delivery devices in e.g. anticancer therapy, and the design of different host–guest binding motifs directed towards medical applications is described.
 Other specific examples are the use of dendrimers as ‘glycocarriers’ for the controlled multimeric presentation of biologically relevant carbohydrate moieties which are useful for targeting modified tissue in malignant diseases for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Finally, the use of specific types of dendrimers as scaffolds for presenting vaccine antigens, especially peptides, for use in vaccines is presented.

Dendrimers in drug research

Birth of a new macromolecular architecture: dendrimers as quantized building blocks for nanoscale synthetic polymer chemistry

Dendrimers as carriers for delivery of chemotherapeutic agents.

The synthesis of water soluble dendrimers, and their application as possible drug delivery systems

The synthesis of two water soluble dendrimers is described. The formation of water soluble inclusion complexes with a variety of small, hydrophobic guest molecules is also described. Moreover, when these guest molecules are drug moieties, then the resulting drug/dendrimer complexes can be considered ideal candidates for use as novel drug delivery systems.

The Synthesis of Water Soluble Dendrimers and Their Application as Possible Drug Delivery Systems.

Dendrimers — an Enabling Synthetic Science to Controlled Organic Nanostructures

The synthesis of hyperbranched poly-L-aspartic acid, poly-L-glutamic acid and poly-L-lysine is reported.

The Synthesis of Chiral Dendrimeric Molecules Based on Amino Acid Repeat Units

A synthetic strategy based on repetitive, divergent, stepwise growth has been used to prepare a tetra-directional cascade dendrimer with a modified peripheral layer.



The study of host-guest interactions with this new type of container molecule indicated that complexation increased the solubility of different hydrophobic guests (benzoic acid, 1-naphthoic acid and 9-anthracenecarboxylic acid) which are sparingly soluble in water. Flow microcalorimetric analysis confirmed the effectiveness of suitable drug-dendrimer complexes.



The size of the cavity within the dendrimer plays a vital role in the accommodation of the guest.

Roseita Esfand

Papers

The synthesis of water soluble dendrimers, and their application as possible drug delivery systems

The Synthesis of Water Soluble Dendrimers and Their Application as Possible Drug Delivery Systems.

Dendrimers — an Enabling Synthetic Science to Controlled Organic Nanostructures

The Synthesis of Chiral Dendrimeric Molecules Based on Amino Acid Repeat Units

Synthesis, Complexation and Pharmaceutical Applications of Tetra‐directional Cascade Dendrimers*