Folic Acid Receptors for Cancer Drug Delivery

Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169409X12002803

This article outlines the successes and failures of using the folic acid receptor for cancer drug delivery. It could be predicted an efficient method of delivery because folic acid receptors are hard to access in normal tissues that express it, are upregulated in many human cancers, and their density appears to increase as the cancer worsens. The article discusses the structure of the folic acid receptor and the expression of the folate receptor in normal and malignant tissues. The folic acid receptors can be used as a way of moving therapeutic molecules into the tumor cells, or as a marker that allows ligand-mediated enrichment of therapeutic molecules on tumor cell surfaces. Delivery of toxins, polymers, gene therapy vectors, and liposome encapsulating drugs into cancer cells can be aided by folic acid receptors functioning as a way to get into the cytoplasm of cancer cells. Folate-targeted enzyme-prodrug therapy and folate-targeted immunotherapeutics would be aided by folic acid receptors functioning as markers. Poor penetration of macromolecular conjugates into tumors is the primary limitation to this application of Folic acid receptors. The article proposes possible solutions to this problem.