Targeting Ovarian Solid Tumors by Elastin-Like Polypeptide Drug Conjugates: Current Trends and Future Prospectives

Background: Ovarian cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Polymers have low cytotoxicity and high functionalizability and are hence used for drug delivery systems, tissue engineering, and polymer therapeutics. In drug delivery systems, polymer-drug conjugates have shown considerable promise, especially in anticancer chemotherapy. Objective: Anticancer Drug Delivery Systems (DDS) deliver drugs to the tumor site leading to reduced exposure of the drugs to healthy cells and hence reduced side effects. Efforts have been made in the past to develop effective DDS using stimuli-responsive polymers like thermosensitive and pH-sensitive polymers. Conclusion: Elastin-like Polypeptides (ELP), one of the thermoresponsive polymers, have been identified as drug carriers in anticancer therapy. ELP-drug conjugates have the potential and can be used effectively in combination with hyperthermia for targeting drugs to solid tumors. This review reports on the use of ELPs in cancer therapy, its biomedical applications, and recent developments to target drugs to ovarian solid tumors.