What is it about?
The object of this Digest is to offer an account of how some macrocyclic hosts (e.g. cucurbiturils, cyclodextrins, pillararenes and calixarenes) are employed in supramolecular medicine creating new supramolecular hydrogels used as biomaterials for human tissue in regenerative medicine, and a diagnostic instrument, in-vitro and in-vivo, for the detection of diseases, as well as for the investigation of cell morphology.
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Why is it important?
nanomedicine presents promising potentials for modernizing traditional biomedical practices, and in this context, the creation of supramolecular materials within nanometer range has become a hot research topic. The construction of new supramolecular structures will offer the potential for novel diagnostic and therapeutic applications in nanomedicine
Perspectives
Clinical use of such supramolecular systems has many practical challenges, such as long-term toxicity due to the many chemical groups, biodegradation and immunological reaction. For these reasons, further elaboration of biocompatible and biodegradable supramolecular systems will be of great interest in future research. Bearing in mind the easy construction of host-guest systems, new supramolecular systems will be capable to increase the ability of the current theranostic techniques. In fact, by exploiting non-covalent interactions and stimuli responsive materials, an ideal supramolecular theranostic system can be designed by combination of i) a biodegradable hydrogel with the characteristics described above, ii) a bioimaging functionality, and iii) a portion able to generate local and selective spatio-temporal cytotoxicity effect. The ultimate aim being that, in the near future, patients will be able to profit from clinical theranostics based on supramolecular systems.
Dr Giuseppe Trusso Sfrazzetto
University of Catania
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Supramolecular complexes for nanomedicine, Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, September 2018, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.bmcl.2018.09.015.
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