Functional oligopeptide as a novel strategy for drug delivery

Abstract

Oligopeptides, a type of short peptide, which consist of 2–20 amino acids, exhibit a variety of biological functions in drug delivery systems, such as specific targeting, cell penetration, self-assembled capacity and responsiveness to the environment. In this review, we aim to highlight the importance of functional oligopeptides for nanomedical applications and put forward the views on the future development direction of oligopeptide medicines. Oligopeptides have gained wide attentions due to their inherent properties, but the lack of understanding the mechanisms of in vivo transport behavior is the biggest problem and challenge at the present stage. Therefore, it is an important direction for the future clinical research to systematically evaluate its metabolic behavior and safety in vivo.

Keywords:

• Oligopeptide
• stimuli-responsive
• self-assemble
• targeting
• functional

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81102814, 81473147, 81503259), the Jiangsu Natural Science Foundation of China (BK20151002), the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD), 2011 Collaborative Innovation Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization (No.: ZDXM-2-3), Outstanding talent training program of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Functional Substance of Chinese Medicine.