Galactose engineered nanocarriers: Hopes and hypes in cancer therapy

For specific targeting of cancer tissues, adequate information about the cancer tissue environment, cancer cell pathology, and available methods and limits of such methods is essentially required. It is already been established that cancer cells express certain receptors, that distinct them from non-cancerous cells. Since past decades, extensive research is on-going for targeting cancer cells via certain ligands that act specifically at such over-expressed receptors. Galactose is one such ligand that is being explored as for targeting different types of cancer cells, especially hepatic cells since they express asialoglycoprotein receptors that have great affinity towards galactose. So different nano-carriers such as micelles, polymeric nanoparticles, SLN, liposomes etc are being modified with galactose to provide specific targeting effect. Also, given that tumor cells show “Warburg effect” that leads to high carbohydrates uptake by tumor cells, galactosylated nano-carriers are taken up by the tumor cells, where the nano-carriers are released, further liberating the therapeutic agent that then shows anti-tumor effect, particularly at the site of action. This article discusses about the development of galactose-modified nano-carriers for drug, gene delivery and galactosylated fluroscent probes for detection of sulphur, nitrogen, oxygen in cancer cells. Also, a brief introduction to the mechanism of cancer cell targeting and receptor-ligand theory has been included.