Cell-Penetrating Peptides: A Promising Tool for Drug Delivery
A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Medicinal Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 2378
Special Issue Editors
Interests: peptides as cell-penetrating molecular transporters; drug delivery; protein kinase inhibitors; multifunctional antivirals; anticancer agents; antibacterial agents; peptide nanomaterials
Interests: cell-penetrating peptides; antimicrobial peptides; macrocyclic peptides; molecular transporters; targeted drug delivery; siRNA delivery; non-viral gene delivery
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The clinical success of any drug molecule mainly depends on its availability at the target site. Physiochemical properties, such as low solubility and/or large molecular size, result in poor pharmacokinetic properties, which eventually hampers their therapeutic applications. Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) are one of the potential categories that have been investigated to be used in drug delivery. CPPs are small peptides that contain 5-40 amino acid residues and have emerged as a powerful tool to overcome the plasma membrane barrier of many mammalian cells for the intracellular or transcellular delivery of a variety of cargos, including small molecule drugs, nanoparticles, liposomes, nucleic acids, peptides, and proteins. The unique section of CPPs, also known as protein transduction domains (PTDs), facilitates the cellular uptake of large biologically active molecules with minimum toxicity. Conjugation of CPP to chemotherapeutics has shown to be a powerful approach in the selective delivery of those agents directly into cancer cells and lowering the doses of chemotherapeutic agents that generate undesired side effects and even overcoming resistance mechanisms.
The aim of this Special Issue is to provide recent findings on using linear or cyclic CPPs, including those with natural or non-natural amino acids as drug delivery tools. A major focus will also be on using CPPs with cargo drugs in the physical mixture or conjugation for diagnostic and therapeutic applications. In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Prof. Dr. Keykavous Parang
Dr. Sandeep Lohan
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- cell-penetrating peptide
- targeted drug delivery
- protein delivery
- small molecule delivery
- mode of cell penetration
